For Whom The Bell Tolls(term-paper)

When reading an Ernest Hemingway novel, one must try very hard to focus on the joy and encouragement found in the work. For Whom the Bell Tolls is full of love and beauty, but is so greatly overshadowed by this lingering feeling of doom--a feeling that does not let you enjoy reading, for you are always waiting for the let down, a chance for human nature to go horribly awry. This feeling is broken up into three specific areas. In Ernest Hemingway's novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, humanity is exploited through brutal violence, unnecessary courage, and hopeless futility.

Hemingway has the uncanny gift of imagery, and he possesses a brilliant mastery of the English language. He is adept at manipulating words and weaving complex sentences; furthermore, "Meticulous description takes its place…For Hemingway…description is definition." (Tanner 228) All of this genius can show the ultimate beauty and grace of existence, but the flipside to that is the same devices used to show all of the wonder and greatness in life can also be used to show to many hardships and painful truths we must endure, such as violence and gory injustices:

“Then some one hit the drunkard a great blow alongside the head with a flail and he fell back, and lying on the ground, he looked up at the man who had hit him and then shut his eyes and crossed his hands on his chest, and lay there beside Don Anastasio as though he were asleep. The man did not hit him again and he lay there and he was still there when they picked up Don Anastasio and put him with the others in the cart that hauled them all over to the cliff where they were thrown over that evening with the others after there had been a cleaning up in the Ayuntamiento.” (Hemingway 126).

The mob-violence that is portrayed in that passage is one inspired by ignorance, weak wills, and alcohol. All through Pilar and Robert Jordan’s flashbacks, one cannot help but be overwhelmed with feelings of disgust towards humankind. These stories are not uncommon, either. Most of the people fighting against the fascists in this novel have similar stories. It is absolutely horrid to hear these anecdotes in which people tell in great detail how they saw their parents, siblings, cousins, and so on, die is extremely heart wrenching ways. One little girls family was murdered in a particular...

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...rible situation comes along to undermine the reader’s faith in human nature. From his meticulously descriptive anecdotes, to his realist narratives, in his novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway exploits humanity through brutal violence, unnecessary courage, and hopeless futility.

Works Cited

Frohok, W.M. “Ernest Hemingway—The River and the Hawk.” The Novel of Violence in America. Mississippi: Beacon, 1957. 166-98.

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,

1940. 1-471.

Howe, Irving. A World More Attractive: A View of Modern Literature and Politics.

New York: Horizon Press, 1963. 65-70.

Tanner, Stephen L. “Hemingway’s Islands.” Southwest Review. Winster: Southern

Methodist University Press, 1976. 74-84.

Tanner, Tony. “Ernest Hemingway’s Unhurried Sensations.” The Wave of Wonder:

Naivety and Reality in American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1965. 228-57.

Villapiano, Gavino. Interview. Off-Camera Conversation with my Father. By Nicholas

Gavino Villapiano. New Jersey: 1999. 1-2

Wain, John. “The Conflict of Forms in Contemporary English Literature.” Essays on

Literature and Ideas. St. Martins: Macmillan, 1963. 230-35