Disillusionment in Hemingway's for Whom the Bell Tolls

John Austin

Men at War: MW 9:30 - 10:45

8 October 2003

Disillusionment in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls

In the late 1930's, Spain was in the midst of a civil war. The country had been in a state of disarray since 1931, when King Alfonso XIII went into voluntary exile. This was followed by a five-year power struggle between the fascists, led by General Francesco Franco, and the Republicans. This struggle became violent in the summer of 1936, and the war lasted until 1939, when Franco's forces triumphed. (Thomas 600)

Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of Robert Jordan and his Republican comrades as they resist the fascists in the fall of 1937. Although a work of fiction, Hemingway's novel accurately portrays the events of the period, and the characters display many of the attitudes prevalent among Spanish revolutionaries. The two central characters, Robert Jordan and Pablo, begin the war as idealistic fighters, but both become disillusioned as the war progresses.

The Spanish civil war had a violent beginning. Across the country, local peasants revolted against the fascist bourgeoisie, killing 512 people during the first months of the war (Thomas 176). In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway poignantly and accurately describes the execution of the upper classmen of the Spanish town of Ronda. The peasants of the town, led by a man named Pablo, corralled the town's fascists into the city hall. Pablo had the peasants, armed with flays, form two lines that extended from the door of the hall to a cliff overlooking a nearby river. One by one, Pablo forces the fascists to leave the city hall and walk between the two lines towards the cliff, which the fascists are thrown off; meanwhile, the peasants beat them to death with flails.

Pablo is ruthless in executing the local fascist police in Ronda. As he prepares to shoot one man in the head, Pablo says, "And you are an ugly thing, you murderer of peasants. You who would shoot your own mother" (Hemingway 112). Later that morning, Pablo remains stoically brutal as he prepares to send the fascists out of the city hall to face the angry crowd outside. The fascists are with a priest, and they pray with him before they are sent to their death. Pablo's wife describes how Pablo acts towards these men, and she says,

"I watched Pablo speak to the priest again, leaning forward from the table and I could not hear what he said from the shouting. But the priest did not answer him but went on praying. Then a man stood up from among the half circle of those who were praying, and I saw that he wanted to go out....Pablo shook his head and went on smoking. I could see Don Pepe say something to Pablo but could not hear it. Pablo did not answer; he simply shook his head again and nodded toward the door" (Hemingway 135).

Pablo may be a brutal man, but at this point in the civil war, he is still dedicated to the Republican cause. He is willing to risk much by leading the local rebellion, and he is successful in doing so.

It is interesting to note the way in which Hemingway describes the crowd as they kill the fascists. He compares it to the way people act when they are inebriated. Pablo's wife says,

"But cruelty had entered into the lines and also drunkenness or the beginning of drunkenness and the lines were not as they were when Don Benito had come out...Drunkenness, when produced by other elements than wine, is a thing of great ugliness and the people do things that they would not have done" (Hemingway 127).

In this description, drunkenness is used as a metaphor to describe mob mentality. No person would normally beat a man to death with farming tools unless he were drunk. The people of the town are sober, but because they have formed a mob, they act as if they are drunk. Pablo utilizes the crowd's inhuman thirst for blood and directs it against the fascists.

Despite his initial courage, within a year, Pablo had lost his revolutionary fervor. One year after the seizure of the town, Pablo and his comrades have retreated to the hills, and he is not willing to take risks. Robert Jordan, one of Pablo's companions and the main character, is sent to destroy a bridge in the hills near Pablo's hideout. However, Pablo does not support Jordan because he is afraid