University oI Novi Sad

Faculty oI Philosophy
Department oI English Language and Literature









Prose oI Ernest Hemingway

Seminar Paper


FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS:
IDEALS AND POLITICS













NIKOLA GEMES





Novi Sad, 2008
The Spanish Civil War was one oI many which were waged by the politics, but Iueled
with the ideals. With the zeal oI crusaders, Ireedom Iighters Irom the liberal world
Ilocked to the country oI Lorca and bullIighting to aid the poor Spanish people against
the rising threat oI Iascism. For many oI them it was the cause worth oI dying. Under
the surIace it was by Iar a war by proxy and playground oI terror Ior the world
powers.
Robert Jordan, a young proIessor oI Spanish Irom Montana, comes to help the country
he loves which he had visited many times. Coming Irom an old republican Iamily, he
Ieels obliged to Iight the Iascism in Europe, lest it could spread all over the world.
'He Iought now in this war because it had started in a country that he loved and he
believed in the Republic and that iI it were destroyed liIe would be unbearable Ior all
those people who believed in it.
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In the Loyalists` cause he recognizes some oI the
American values and embraces it as his own. 'You believe in Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity. You believe in LiIe, Liberty and the Pursuit oI Happiness.
2
Enlisted with
International Brigades, he is a dynamiter who works behind enemy lines, destroying
bridges and trains carrying Iascist troops and war material. Taking direct orders Irom
General Golz, Jordan is considered an entrusted supporter oI the Republican eIIorts.
Although he adopts the war cries oI the Spanish people, both revolutionary and
patriotic as his own, and is 'as bigoted and hidebound about his politics as a hard-
shelled Baptist
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he is not ready to die Ior them yet. His ideals about liberty and
democracy and equality are strong and Iirmly deIined, Ior sure, but Ior now, he would
gladly abandon heroic death and martyrdom. 'He did not want to make a
Thermopylae, nor be Horatius at any bridge, nor be the Dutch boy with his Iinger in
that dyke.
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What is more he hated the possible misery that he would bring to the
partisans oI Pablo, by destroying the bridge. Jordan was a proIessional, though, and he
knew that such is the way oI war. 'In all the work that they, the partizans, did, they
brought added danger and bad luck to the people that sheltered them and worked with
them. For what? So that, eventually, there should be no more danger and so that the

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country should be a good place to live in.
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So, in a way he is Iorced to use these
guerillas, the very children oI Spain with whom he shared bread as a general would
use the soldiers he never heard oI. He knows that the bridge must be dropped down
into the gorge at all costs. It is clear that he must not worry about the people who will
catch the hell, once the bridge is gone. They are Iighters, too. It is him who receives
the order Irom Golz, who is his Iriend. But Golz is also the party, and the army. It is
the politics. Robert Jordan serves under the Communist command in this war, not
because he is supports Leninism or Stalinism, but because the communists are the
most disciplined oI all the Iactions, and they have the best oIIicers. He himselI is a
Republican, and does not believe in planned society. 'That was Ior the others to do.
He had something else to do aIter this war.
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He accepts the Communist rule and
discipline, because they are the only party in the war whose program he can accept.
For now, we can see that Robert Jordan has not taken the war personally yet. It is his
job and he has his orders, but he is also assured that what he is doing there will make
the world a better place.



There were many Iactions that Iought Ior the Republic. They ranged Irom centrists,
who supported a moderately capital liberal democracy, to revolutionary anarchists and
communist, but also included landless peasants
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. In a way, one can say that Pablo`s
group presents a microcosm oI Loyalist insurgents.









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