Gender and Racial Inequalities within Ruth Ozeki’s
My Year of Meats
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104302
Author(s): Kayla Menard
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104302
PDF: Download Full Text
Volume 15 | Issue 2 | April 2024
Pages: 292-299
AboutUs: https://www.the-criterion.com/about/
Archive: https://www.the-criterion.com/archive/
ContactUs: https://www.the-criterion.com/contact/
EditorialBoard: https://www.the-criterion.com/editorial-board/
Submission: https://www.the-criterion.com/submission/
FAQ: https://www.the-criterion.com/fa/
ISSN 2278-9529
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
www.galaxyimrj.com
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
War and Human Predicament: A Study of Hemingway’s For Whom The
Bell Tolls
Dr. Radhashyam Dey
Asst. Prof. of English,
Yogoda Satsanga Mahavidyalaya,
Jagannathpur, Dhurwa, Ranchi-834004,
Jharkhand.
&
Dr. Shweta Singh
Asst. Prof. of English,
Yogoda Satsanga Mahavidyalaya,
Jagannathpur, Dhurwa, Ranchi-834004,
Jharkhand.
Article History: Submitted-21/02/2024, Revised-27/04/2024, Accepted-29/04/2024, Published-30/04/2024.
Abstract:
Ernest Hemingway is a legendary figure of America. His works reveal a sense of
disenchantment, alienation and revulsion from the horrors of war. In the modern period from
around the First World War, and with the Great Depression and in the involvement in the
Second World War as Britain’s ally, America’s growing participation in world affairs became
a notable aspect of its self-construction. In 1936-39, the Spanish Civil War found lots of US
volunteers who fought in the war and eventually, this experience became part of the context
and subjects of literature. Hemingway, who worked as a war correspondent in Spain, drew on
Spanish peasant life, the Spanish national pastime of bullfighting and the anti-fascist
resistance in his work For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) and some of these experiences
contribute to the making of the strong “masculine” code by which many of his heroes lived.
Hemingway’s novels have delineated the problems and the life of the post-war period. He
had felt the deep agonizing experiences of war as a soldier and had also suffered the severe
wound which left its mark on his psyche. Philip Young writes, “This is the world seen
through a crack in the wall by a man who is pinned down by a gun fire” (Ernest Hemingway,
p.40). This paper depicts in 1930s how Hemingway’s interests centered round the Spanish
War, its slaughter, death, violence and human predicament which he has depicted in For
Whom The Bell Tolls.
285
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104267
War and Human Predicament: A Study of Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Keywords: war, violence, death, human predicament, disenchantment.
Introduction
Hemingway was a literary artist of high caliber. War was one of his most favourite
themes and it indeed was the major theme in America’s national life in the twentieth century
with several engagements in different parts of the world creating a requirement demand for
the American soldier to fight overseas. In Death in the Afternoon (1932), a study of the art of
bullfighting, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “All stories, if continued for enough, end in death,
and he is no true story teller who would keep that from you”. Violent death, often the subject
matter of his fiction, shaped Hemingway’s life. It also triggered his exit – with a blast from a
shotgun he held in his mouth. War always attracted him. Hemingway joined the Italian army,
first as an ambulance driver, then as an infantry officer. In 1918, at nineteen, he was almost
killed by shrapnel burst. For the rest of his life, Hemingway flirted with destructive forces,
both human and natural. He was in Spain during World War II. In Paris after World War I,
Hemingway joined the expatriate group of artists and writers described by Gertrude Stein as
“the lost generation.” It has often been said against Hemingway that he gravely handicaps
himself by dealing with violent action rather than the act of intelligence. The world of his
novels is a world at war where the figure of death looms large. Here lies the relevance of his
novels To Whom the Bell Tolls.
Hemingway was wounded in the First World War. He was taken care by a Red Cross
nurse Agnes with whom he had fallen in love and this love is the genesis of his most red war
novel A Farewell to Arms. His writings give us a true and realistic picture of war.
Hemingway wrote, ”When you go to a war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality.
Other people get killed; no you…Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose
that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks
before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen
to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always
done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it”1.
(Sean Hemingway,p. 12) To give a first hand war reporting, Hemingway liked being part of
action. Hemingway himself said,” The writer’s standard of fidelity to the truth should be so
high that his invention, out of his experience, should produce a true account than anything
factual can be. For facts can be observed badly; but when a good writer is creating something,
he has time and scope to make of it an absolute truth”2. (Sean Hemingway, p. 23)
Gordimer says:
286
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
I am not concerned with what Ernest Hemingway did or did not do in his own
body , his own person, out of his own courage in wars…Let us leave his life
alone. It belongs to him as he lived it. Let us read his books. They are his
particular illumination of what our existence has been , his gift to us that
belongs to us all.( *Hemingway Centennial Celebration)
Hemingway does not glorify war. The war itself is viewed with suspicion. As Frederic
Henry in A Farewell to Arms says:
I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the
expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost
out to earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read
them, on proclamations that were slapped up by the bill posters over other
proclamations… and I had seen nothing sacred and the things that were
glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago
(162-63).
For whom the Bell Tolls marks the culmination of Hemingway’s creative genius.
Hemingway’s intimate knowledge of Spain and Spanish people and the civil war gave him a
background and awakened the spirits of many writers of different nationalities to side with
the Republicans in their struggle with the Fascists. The member of the International Brigade
fought for liberty. In For whom the Bell Tolls Jordan, an American volunteer represents the
same spirit in his crusade, and the failure of hopes and ideals is the failure of the hopes and
the aspirations of mankind. Nemi D’ Agostino has observed:
What we find in the book is another lost young man, another individual
failure, a solitary drama that is symbolic of all the individual dramas of all
times and places. The only difference is that now the individual failure is
overtly seen as part of a collective failure, a common drama in which the new
ideals and hopes one by one prove fruitless, and in the end the only thing
which remains is the unbroken chain of pessimism and despair.3
The story of the novel shows the conflict between the Republicans and the Fascists
aided by the volunteers sent by Mussolini. The central action of the novel hinges on the
blowing of a bridge. Robert Jordan has been entrusted with this task so that the Fascists may
287
War and Human Predicament: A Study of Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
be prevented from attacking the Republicans. The time of blowing the bridge is the most
important thing. The events take place in the valley of Gaudarrama. Jordan has been mortally
wounded and lies down in the pine wood.
Robert Jordan’s love – affair with Maria is the subplot introduced in the novel. Her
parents have been shot dead and she is raped by the Fascists. She has been rescued from the
train carrying political prisoners by the Guerillas. Maria anguished and crazy has been
brought to normally by Pilar. Jordan’s intense love with Maria indicates a sense of fulfillment
and joy experienced by the hero in the midst of crisis. The incidents cover seventy hours in
the valley of Gaudarrama. Hemingway has portrayed the motivating forces, the cogitations
and the deliberations of the hero.
The Spanish Civil War awakened a sense of anger and hatred for the Fascists. The
war drew Hemingway’s attention and he became preoccupied with the political problems in
his novel. He knew Spain in 1920. Carlos Barker has pointed out.
The almost medieval country he had known in the nineteen-twenties during
Alfonso’s eight year dictatorship by royal – decree had begun to change
rapidly in 1931 with the overthrowing of monarchy and the establishment of
the Democratic Republic of Workers.4
When he visited Spain in 1931, he became familiar with the miserable plight of the
common man and the corruptions rampant in the Bureaucracy.
The novel has become an epic and Carlos Barker has pointed out the similarity
between an epic and For whom the Bell Tolls. Stain has been compared to Illium and Robert
Jordan resembles the hero Achilles of the Trojan War and Pilar to Ajax. Fascists are similar
to the supernatural power of destruction in an ancient Greek epic. The airships come in threes
and the multiple of three, like the three witches in Macbeth. Robert Jordan has his
premonitions of death. Pilar has the intuitive power to prognosticate future. The holding
action at the bridge reminds one of Thermopylee and Horatius at the bridge. In spite of these
resemblances For whom the Bell Tollscannot be regarded an epic. In the modern age, the
progress of science and reason have resolved the mysteries of nature and the old heroism of
life is gone.
Hemingway has imbued the work with symbolic significance. The naturalistic
descriptions have been mingled with the symbolic suggestions. In an atmosphere of war,
firing and bombardment cruelty and destruction, Sierra de Gaudarrama provides a contrast. It
288
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
has been treated symbolic of a place which has love and health. Maria, the crazy woman, is
rehabilitated and Robert Jordan himself is spiritually strengthened in his love with Maria.
Like other Hemingway heroes he has courage, strength and valour and can risk his life in the
moment of danger. In blowing up the bridge, he has received the mortal wound. Maria’s hair
was cut short by the Falangists. The loss of hair is symbolic of the loss of womanhood. There
are allusions to her growing hair. She has become a woman again with the growth of her hair.
Maria says to Jordan, “They gave me this hair cut in Valladolid. It is almost grown out now.”
She remained in the mountain for three months and her hair grew. The growth of her hair
symbolizes the recovery of her mental health.
Robert Jordan, the Hemingway hero, is like the fighter of the International Brigade.
He has gone to a different country to fight for the loyalists. He has been inspired by an
idealism which inspired the foreigners to fight for the Republic in Spain.
Robert Jordan is to blow up the bridge under instruction from General Golz. He
remained in Spain for ten years and had a vast knowledge of its topography. He himself has
been injured and he has killed people in war recklessly. He has to get rid of this guilt by
writing. This is “an echo of Hemingway’s own belief that the process of artistic creation has a
therapeutic effect on artist.” He has not been involved in the domestic politics. Robert Jordan
is convinced that the discipline of the communists was essential if the victory was to be
attained. Jordan’s father shot himself with a pistol carried by his grandfather in the American
Civil War. Hemingway’s father also had committed suicide. Jordan has experiences the
despair and the disillusionment. He has been aggrieved to find that the corrupt bureaucracy
and the internal political machinations have betrayed the Spanish Republic. Anselmo, a
Republican supporter remarks to Jordan that he has killed in war but not with pleasure, “Yes,
several times. But not with pleasure. To me it is a sin to kill a man. Even Fascists whom we
must kill – no. I am against of killing all men.”5
Pilar, Pablo’s wife is a brave gispsy woman with her tough character. She is, in
Anselmo’s word, “A hundred times, braver than Pablo. But something barbarous.”6 She has a
tongue that scales and that bites like a bull-ship. She is a unique woman who has sided with
other guerillas who persuaded Jordan to kill Pablo. She is responsible for love and marriage
between Maria and Jordan.
For Whom the Bell Tolls is not a confused work as Maxwell Geismar believes. It
deals with the destiny of man. For deeper understanding of this novel, one should go to the
lines quoted from John Donne that “No man is an island, intire of it selfe every man is a
peace of the continent apart of the maine… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am
289
War and Human Predicament: A Study of Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
involved in Mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for
thee.” The war has been fought and Robert Jordan has discharged his duty with loyalty. If
storm comes no one is safe. The calamity will overwhelm the adherents and the opponents
alike. Halliday has brought out this predicament depicted in this novel. Pablo has flailed
many prominent Fascists to death. He has become terror incarnate. Pilar his wife has related
how people are disgusted with Pablo’s plan to persecute the Fascists. It is rather ironical that
the loyalists waging war against the Fascists are imbued with some violence, cruelty and
revenge which has been betrayed by the Fascists themselves. Halliday says “Robert Jordan is
not an island and has been killed by the war which he fought.7Both the sides have suffered
substantial losses.
Conclusion:
Professor Gates opined:
Hemingway was one of the finest prose stylists in English. He captured in
stunning stories and novels the uncomfortable realities of his age and forced
into public consciousness a realization of the brutalities of war and their
lingering psychological effects. His stories of Nick Adams depict the
adolescent agonies of a generation. His best novels record for all time the
emotional turmoil of modern warfare and modern life. It is the integrity of his
craft, a richness beyond legend , that will forever endure. (*Hemingway
Centennial Celebration)
The Gita, generally deemed to be a later addition to the epic, is an antiwar testament
in that it seeks to free us from the passions of the mind which lead to violent confrontations
between individuals, ethnic and religious groups and nations. It is a clash of egos that results
in the raging inferno of war, the hell that humankind unleashes on earth, putting to shame all
our achievements of science, art and philosophy. The fights between Israel and Hamas and
between Ukraine and Russia remind us of our Kurukshetra. Zhuge Liang says, “The wise win
before the fight which the ignorant fight to win”8. Hemingway has depicted war as a great
calamity and has portrayed the wound, death and the distress in his works. He has also
revealed that the war has caused a sense of alienation from the society and the old values of
life have disintegrated. His characters are “Bloodied prize fighters, hired killers,
disembowelled bullfighters, crippled soldiers, hunters of wild animals, deep-sea fishermen.”
Hemingway’s world-view is a limited one because he has concentrated not on the normal
290
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-II, April 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
moments in life dealing with family life, business, agriculture but on tense moments that
assess the capacity of his characters to endure under adverse circumstances. In spite of the
limited range of his characters and narrow vision of life, his place is secure in literary history.
When his death was announced on 3rd July, 1961, the obituary in The Times stated, “No
history of the literature of our time will be able to ignore his achievement or his far-reaching
influence”9. The best way to win a war is to learn not to fight one is the message of
Hemingway.
Works Cited:
1. Hemingway, Sean. Hemingway on War. Scribner,2003, p.12.
2. Ibid.,p.23.
3. Agostino, Nemi D. The Latter Hemingway, p.156.(Twentieth Century Views)
4. Barker, Carlos. Hemingway the Writer as Artists. Princeton University Press.1972, p.224
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls, p.42.
6. Ibid., p.28.
7. Halliday. E.M. Hemingway’s Ambiguity: Symbolism and Irony. Duke University
Press. 1956, p.68.
8. Maurois, Andre. Ernest Hemingway, Princeton University Press, 1962, p.38.
9. Jug Suraiya, The Times of India. November, 2023.
* Quotations on Gordimer and Louis Gates are taken from remarks given at the
Hemingway Centennial Celebration at the John F. Kennedy Library on April 10-
11.1999.
291
Kayla Menard