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Ernest Hemingways Narrative Style

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The title of the novel “ For Whom The Bell Tolls “ Hemingway took the title of his novel “For Whom The Bell Tolls” from a metaphysical poet
John Donne. He was the one that concerned the metaphor of the bell that it was signaling that someone has gone from this life which mean that it was signaling the death of human life.
In the famous lines at the beginning of the “For Whom The Bell Tolls” paragraph: “ No man is an lland, intire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in menkind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Donne was trying to tell that everything has it end, that if something affects one it can affect them all because everyone like him is involved in menkind, and he realized that when he got ill.
It is exactly how it happens with a tree, it starts from the seed, the stem, then comes the flowers that later produces fruits, and in the end one day it is fading. That is how it happens with humans beans, they get born, they grow up, produce and in the end they die just like the trees are fading.

We live in fear every day in this world because we know that one day the clock will stop for us just like our heartbeats will stop beating anymore, and then I believe that all the fear we had felt will disappear forever. But it is also apparent that in this paragraph Donne could also mean that even that people die and are not anymore on this earth, they can still continue living in the life after death, things that are mentioned in all the holy books that were send from god. Donne was pointing out peoples mortality and he is trying to remind them that each bell that they listen to ring, would be as an alarm which will remind the menkind how nearer the death is for each of them. Main Themes
Death - Many novels are written that deal with the issue of death and a lot of critics write different articles on death. I consider death as a source of release from this troublesome life, I consider it as a horrifying reality. Death is nothing but a transition of a living being from one state of existence to another. But, because living beigns have feelings, they get emotionally attached to their relatives, friends and loved ones. This feeling of attachment makes any living beign sad when a close one dies. It is a feeling of losing someone forever.

As in every war novel so and in this one it is clear that every person called on their duty in war knows that death is close beside them. When to Robert Jordan came the order to go and blow up the bridge he knew that he can not survive it. He was aware that in war you can kill and also be killed, thing that he does not like to do, but in the line of duty he have done it. While I was analyzing and reading the novel I realized that the first thing that shows up is that many characters die during the course of the novel. In this novel death is seen as a friend and as well as an enemy. Some of the characters hate killing and as an example here is Anselmo who hates killing in all circumstances, but he will do so if he must.
Another character is Pablo who accepts killing as a part of his life and who demonstrates that he is willing to kill his own men just to take their horses.
An another example would be Joaquin who loses both his parents, but he found good people beside him, his comrades where he found their support and comfort by accepting him in their family. Much of the pain of death for the living comes from a sense of loss. It marks an end to all the possibilities both for ourselves and for the departed that might have been realized by a longer life. In the presence of death we must look to the future and give thanks for our existence; our culture; our knowledge; our peace; and our unity.

Suicide – Suicide is something that is not new for us, and it always looms as an alternative to suffering.
Stressful situations cause individuals to feel hopeless and make them feel like suicide is the only answer, people see it as their way out, their escape from reality.

In the novel “ For Whom The Bell Tolls” a number of characters contemplate suicide: such are
Karkov who always carries pills to use to kill himself if he is ever captured. On the other hand is
Maria who for the same purpose carries around a razor blade. According to Robert Jordan, he does not approve suicide, but he would prefer death over capture, and is prepared to kill himself to avoid it. This is shown in the end of the novel when he was wounded and was left behind his companions by his own will, that time a lot of thought came into his head such as:

‘you have to be awfully occupied with yourself to do a thing like that’

Even though he awaits a final ambush that will end his life, he still waits in order not to do that, but still that was the only option he would have choose in the end better than to have inevitable tortures for the extraction of information and death at the hands of the enemy.

Imagery – Every writer use a little bit of imagery in their plays, so does and Hemingway. He used images to produce the dense atmosphere of violence and death. As his main image of “For Whom The
Bell Tolls” is the automatic weapon. All these weapons employs the fear of modern armament to destroy romantic conceptions of the ancient art of war.

Most powerfully he had described the shooting of Maria’s parents against the wall of a slaughterhouse. He sees all these weapons as they are in competition of hunting, as they are

prepared to kill each time a person is in front of them. But another imagery that he puts in here is the romantic imagery, the soil and earth. That was when Jordan and Maria had relations and there for the first time in his life Jordan felt that “ the earth move out and away from under them”. He could not believe that, it was like a dream for him and just to convince himself he asked Maria whether she felt the same as he. Those were very special moments a lot of pure imagery as if he was trying to convince the readers that it was true, that everyone can feel that way once in their life. Sometimes I wonder as if people could have been different without imagery, but sometimes I am glad that it lives in our minds because it creates a wonderful imagines in our lives, when we are in bad situations and stressful. Imagery sometimes help people to avoid those terrible situation that they have passed through, it helps to create a new world where everybody can be happy for some moments. Romantic love as salvation – Love and war, two concepts that are so contradictory it is hard to believe they could coexist in one society. Since the beginning of time, there have been two things that have been a part of civilization, love and war. Sure the way each is conducted has changed dramatically through the years but each still hold an enormous part of our hearts and minds in their wake.

Even though this novel talks for war, for terrible things, weapons, and mortality, it still holds out hope for romantic love. Robert Jordan and Maria fall in love at first sight, and their love is grand and idealistic. Despite the fact that he was in war he fall in love and he was trying to fight for that love, because he believed in love. No matter where you are in which circumstances you are love is a gentle and caring part of our lives, but it can be very disheartening part of our existence as well. So this love gave to Robert
Jordan’s life meaning, gave him another reason to fight in the wake of the disillusionment he feels for the Republican cause.

Another character that was worldly-wise is Pilar which despite that she had most of the time a frowning face inside of her she got love experiences. She let them know about her memories of
Finito and with that demonstrates traces of a romantic, idealistic outlook on the world.

As a conclusion I can also add that by loving people and by loving yourself firstly we can find peace in our hearts, and while gaining it, we have won the salvation from everything that is bothering us.

The loss of innocence in war – The action taken in war have regrettable consequences. Innocence is usually associated with youth and ignorance, it is associated with the evils of the world. Similarly, the loss of one’s innocence can be interpreted in more than one way, and depending on the interpretation, it may happen numerous times.

Every character in this novel loses his or her psychological or physical innocence to the war.
As much as I have examined for wars much more I felt unpleasant of that how much is affecting and destroying peoples live.

One of the characters is Joaquin who lost his parents, on the other side here is Maria who loses her physical innocence when she was raped by a group of Fascist solders. Robert Jordan is the one that loses much of his initial idealism because of the republican cause.

But victims of violence in war are not the only ones to lose their innocence, there are also people who aren’t involved in it directly, innocent people. Hemingway shows that both sides, right and wrong are almost never clean-cut, because there is no sense of glorious victory in battle, no sense of triumph or satisfaction that good prevails and evil is defeated.

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