Adhikari 1

Sandhya Adhikari

Janak Poudel

ENGL 557.1

25 August 2022

Use of Passive Voice to Express Irresponsible Political Concern in

“For Whom the Bell Tolls”

This analytical study focuses on stylistics reading of the Hemingway’s “For

Whom the Bell Tolls” through the approach of passive voice that tries to clarify the

unaccountable political concern. Kadir in her paper, “A Stylistic Analysis of For Whom

the Bell tolls” analyzes Hemingway’s specific style of writing and its special effect.

Kadir argues that, “the accepted feature of lexis; categories of grammar; figures of

speech; context and cohesion; and the writer’s linguistic preference has always link to the

theme. It is hoped that a more specific and a general idea can be derived on the influence

of stylistics on beauty and success of the writer. The study endeavors to find out

Hemingway’s narrative style that is extraordinary.” “A Stylistics Analysis of Repetition

in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls”, by Jasim Mohammed emphasis at carrying

out a stylistic analysis of repetition in a novel and how these repeated words are

significant for the interpretation of the whole novel. Hasan states that, “the purpose of

analysis is to first provide a description of Hemingway’s style in general. This will be

achieved through analyzing Hemingway corpus. Secondly, the researcher will present an

analysis of For Whom the Bell Tolls indicating the repetitive expression and keywords.”

Ismail published the article “Stylistic Intertextuality in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell

Tolls” where he aims to stylistically unveil the intertextual points in the novel. According
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to him, “through a close stylistic analysis of the novel in terms of diction, illusion and

other aspects in which the two novels relate, it is clear that the author use intertextual

materials in the composition of their literary texts.”

Hemingway quite often uses passive voice through different character in the novel

in order to highlight the un-approvable political concern in the novel. “It was built

since…” neglects the idea that Robert Jordan who was there to blow bridge still not clear

about the bridge. Robert Jordan initially came to Spain with idealism about the

Republican cause and believed confidently that he was joining the good side. Hemingway

skillfully says “two heavy packs had been carrying…” in the context where Jordan is

highly excited in compiling and preparing things in moving forward for doing his job.

The focus of attention is quite often away from the subject. The constant use of passive

verb ‘wiped’, ‘screwed’, ‘showed’ in the novel has determined the focus is on action.

Third person narrator uses passive verb to clarify how much keen is Jordan in

accomplishing his political task. But this only supports to the idea of his negligence.

After fighting in the war, Robert Jordan becomes cynical about the political cause and

losses all of his initial idealism. In a superficial level Jordan’s involvement in war seems

to involve clean moral choices. When we dive deep into it, through stylistics perspective

in the very first chapter we get the idea of immoral political concern. The use of passive

again to hide explosive “like to have it hidden in utmost security ….” makes linguist

sense that his morality is conditional and futile. Hemingway tires to show that the sides of

right and wrong are almost never clear-cut. There are no definite sides of wrong or right

in focusing on security of explosions that will collapse the environment and people.

Moreover, Jordan uses passive voice to defend his idea of explosives storage. “This
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material not to be stored far from the bridge” here, Jordan shows his ability to act on

surrounding- to do things, to function as a subject. Thus, he keeps the material nearby

bridge so that he can explode whenever he wants to. Hemingway challenges the idea of

glorious victory in times of war through the use of passive.

Hemingway has mastered in using passive voice to denote the inexplicable

stress of politics. No politics that invites war is of any concern. The old man while

showing the way to the bridge says, “From where we are going……” Here they pass the

downhill. In using this form of voice, Hemingway, relates the speech of old man with the

nature of Spanish war. Third person narrator uses passive again to show the departure

from subject and focus on action; the action of blowing bridge where Spanish people

themselves are involved. The old man maps the way downhill is ultimately his invitation

of downfall. The old man moving forward had to face first hand difficulty in the novel.

“Had been very careful not to leave any trail” Hemingway tries to show how things are

done to the poor old man and his inactivity is misused. Jordan says, “how are you

called?”, “have forgotten”. He forgets old man’s name. Though the focus is on subject

here still not with much concern about whatever his name is. He was there just to fight

and has no value of whatever the name of old man is. From stylistics perspective his use

of passive voice in asking name and the idea of forgetfulness is itself enough to

encompass the meaningless political concern.

Robert Jordon memory of Golz also depicts constant use of passive to

demonstrates the bridge blowing task as something which highly matters for uprising

politics but again vain. Golz uses passive ‘have never been given…’, ‘bridge gone’, ‘to

be made’, which denotes his departure from subject again and his indifference to
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whatever action he is carrying out in the name of politics. Blowing bridge or any

infrastructure is just nothing more than a political purpose even for Golz. Golz says, “The

plan has been manufactured in Madrid”. Here, Golz presents his idea that he is on behalf

of understanding but blowing bridge is the duty given to him by someone else. The use of

passive here makes a statement of inevitable action and presents the idea of blame game.

This also pushes to the hypocrisy in the novel. The use of passive has proven that many

of the so called loyalist leader as Jordan are incompetent and uncaring. They just exploit

their position in order to attain a level of comfort and self-indulgence in the midst of war.

Jordan knew “his papers were being examined by the man who could not read”, here

third person narrator’s intention is to show the leader who seemingly appear to have

valiant nature and political concern are not really genuine, and in fact have been

imported. In fact, Jordan was an American who came to fight in the Spanish civil war.

Jordan himself admits that he doesn’t really believe all the things he says he believes in

order to justify his involvement in the war. His statement and justification supports the

sense of insecurity to other character like Pablo. The statement of Pablo used in passive

like “I am tired of being hunted”, “to be hunted”, “we be not disturbed” is where the

stylistics approach demands that novelist might be presenting how the natives are forced

to war without any political concern.

Hemingway portrayal of most of the character through passive gives a formal

effect of the political concern and concept which has no meaning at all. Passive in the

statement of the character and even third person narrator has contributed to ongoing

irresponsible political concern which is nothing more than constant lying, infighting,

exploiting position, blame game and control by foreigners.

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Work Cited:

Kadir, Sarab. A Stylistics Analysis of For Whom the Bell Toll. A linguistic study of

Dummy Subject IT, University of Diyala, 2019.

Ismail, K. Stylistics Intertextuality in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Studies in

English Language Teaching, Scholink, 2018.

Mohammed, Jasim. A Stylistic Analysis of Repetition in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell

Tolls. College of Arts, University of Basrah, 2014.

Wright, Laura. Jonathan, Hope. Stylistics A Practical Coursebook. The passive,

Routledge, London, 1996, pp 53-55.

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Arrow Books, Penguin Random House,

2004, pp 3-19.