Hemingway Spanish Civil War Sanders1960 PDF

Ernest Hemingway's Spanish Civil War Experience
Author(s): David Sanders

Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2, Part 1 (Summer, 1960), pp. 133-143
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
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DAVID SANDERS
Harvey Mudd College
ErnestHemingways
SpanishCivil War Experience
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR HAS RETAINED AN EVOCATIVE QUALITY WHICH THE
other crisesprecedingWorld War II lack. Although its concreteresult
was a fascisttriumph,it also offeredinternationalcommunismits greatest
political opportunitysince the Soviet revolutionby convertingthe con-
cept of a united frontagainst fascismfrom a topic for discussion to a
battlefieldreality. And, long before the surrenderof Madrid, it had
inspiredan impressiveliterature,even thoughpartyline reportagemust
be enteredinto thecanon withMan's Hope and For Whom theBell Tolls.
The inescapable relationshipbetweenpolitics and writingin thiswar
is, of course,the obscuringfactorin judging the real worth of its litera-
ture. This problem of how far communistobjectivescame to be shared
by noncommunistwritersmay be seen mostclearlyin the relevantworks
of Ernest Hemingway.No otherwriter,so involved,was more provably
noncommunistthan the author of GreenHills of Africa,yetnone was to
call more urgentlyformilitantstruggleagainst the fascists.Twentyyears
later,Hemingway,of all Americanwritersdealing with the struggle,has
been mostconsistently faithfulto his earlyconvictions.
It was this undeviatingindividualitywhich so qualified Hemingway's
experiencein the Spanish Civil War that he was firstacclaimed a cham-
pion and then dismissed as a renegade by the American communist
spokesmenin New Masses. They could not accept the elusive social im-
plications of For Whom the Bell Tolls as a furtherexalted testof indi-
vidual courageand representedtheirown angeras disillusion.What they
wroteexpressedthe frustratedawarenessthat theywere dealing with no
convert,but essentiallythe same man, whetherhe had been raisingmoney
forambulancesin 1937 or condemningAndr6 Martyin 1940.
134 American Quarterly
For Whom the Bell Tolls was published twentymonths after the
Spanish Republic had fallen in March of 1939, and, formanyreasons,it
was not the book thathad been expectedof Hemingway.Edmund Wilson,
among those who had hinted at the writer'sdecline in the mid-thirties,
was relieved to note its differencefrom The Fifth Column,' while for
another type of reader it was a jarring departure fromthe precedents
which had been set by Andre Malraux and, to a lesserdegree,by Elliott
Paul. Paul's Life and Death of a Spanish Town had the Republican tri-
color on the dust-jacketand was, certainlyfora noncombatant'seffort, a
most impassioned cry for world intervention.Man's Hope, in a swift
successionof sketches,attempteda more directand comprehensivestudy
of the Loyalist effort.This was an obviouslyhurriedbook, appearing in
1937 while its author was on active duty with a Loyalist air command.2
Each sketchwas filledwith an urgencyto persuade, an urgencywhich
had been communicatedmore successfully in Man's Fate, when Malraux
had been able to considerthe abortiveShanghai revoltfromthe vantage
point of exile ratherthan combat.
Hemingwaywas hardlya man like Malraux or Paul to writea political
novel about the Spanish Civil War. While it appeared that he had be-
come sociallyconcernedin To Have and Have Not and althoughit was
evidentfromhis war correspondenceand The FifthColumn thathe had
taken sides in Spain, the patternof political statementsin all of his writ-
ing up to 1937 indicates an apathy towardpolitical institutionswith a
correlativefascinationfor the behavior of individual human beings.
Spain (or Italy, or Africa) has had an identityin Hemingway'swork as
a theaterof individual experience.When Spain lost that identityin The
Fifth Column and became a mere backdrop for the incredibleplayboy-
commissar,Hemingwayproduced a failure."But it wasn't just the Civil
War I put into it," Hemingwaysaid of For Whom theBell Tolls. "It was
everythingI had learned about Spain for eighteenyears."3 This work
has endured.
The Spanish peasant in "The Old Man at the Bridge," who worried
about his birds and his cats,said, "I have no politics." From his wound
at Fossalta del Piave to his residencein theHotel Florida,ErnestHeming-
way was almost belligerentlynonpolitical. His earliest attitudestoward
organized society were conventional expatriate expressions. Krebs of
1 In "Hemingway: Gauge of Morale," The Wound and the Bow (New York: Oxford
UniversityPress, 1947).
2 For an account of Hemingway and Malraux meeting in Spain before either novel
had been written,see Malcolm Cowley, "A Portrait of Mister Papa," Life, January
10, 1949.
3 Cowley, Life, January 10, 1949.
Hemingway'sSpanish Civil War Experience 135
"Soldier's Home" symbolizedthe veteran'sisolation frompostwarAmeri-

can surroundingsand his reluctanceto join the national missionof get-
tingahead. European political phenomenawere no more appealing if we
mayjudge fromthe impressionistic insertsof In Our Time, wherecabinet
ministersare shot against walls and the Greek king is "like all Greeks"
because he wants to go to America. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake Barnes
asks Bill Gortonnothingmore about America than the latestspeculation
on Jack Dempsey'schallengers.Of course this novel is consciouslynon-
political, but Hemingwayseems just as detached in such contemporary
storiesas "The Revolutionist" and "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" The first
deals with contrabandpassage throughItaly of a Hungarian communist,
who has no more extendedsignificancethan any of the executed cabinet
ministers.The second storylimitsits commentson Mussolini's new state
to fascistrestrictionson personal pleasures.A Farewell to Arms,with its
frequentlyquoted interdictagainst patrioticabstractionsand Frederick
Henry'sbored listeningto anarchisttalk in theItalian army,suggestspos-
sible originsfor this social detachment.Its most absolute expressionin
Hemingway'sfictioncomesin the overwhelmingnana of "A Clean, Well-
lightedPlace."
The finaldistillationof this quality of political feelingmay be found
in GreenHills of Africa,where "What's going on in the United States?"
is a casual question advanced betweenkudu hunts."Damned if I know,"
the answer begins. "Some sort of Y.M.C.A. show. Starry-eyedbastards
spendingmoneythat somebodywill have to pay. Everybodyin our town
quit workto go on relief."4Earlier, the code of the individual had been
comparedwithideals of collectiveaction:
If you servetime forsociety,democracy,and the other thingsquite
young,and decliningany furtherenlistmentmake yourselfresponsible
only to yourself,you exchange the pleasant, comfortablestench of
comradesfor somethingyou can never feel in any otherway than by
yourself.5
Then, suddenly,therewas a surprisingHemingwayappearance in New
Masses. "Who Murderedthe Vets?,"6 with the title supplied by the edi-
tors,describeda Florida hurricanewhichclaimed the lives of 446 veterans
employedon a public worksproject in the Keys.Its statementscoincided
withNew Masses editorial policy7 withoutdepartingfromHemingway's
4 Green Hills of Africa (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1935), p. 191. (The book
was published in October, a month afterthe New Masses article subsequentlycited.)
5 Ibid., p. 148.
6 New Masses, XVI (September 17, 1935), 9-10.
7 Although the magazine reflectedEuropean popular frontmovementsat this time,
its domesticattitudes in 1935 were expressed in the most caustic criticismof the Roose-
velt administrationto appear in any American publication.
personal standardsof justice,condemningthe United Statesin much the

same termsas thoseused in GreenHills ofAfricain what is unmistakably
a laterstatementof theexpatriateviewpoint.
"Who sent themdown to the Florida Keys and left them therein the
hurricanemonths?"Hemingwayasks. "Wealthypeople, yachtsmen,fish-
ermenlike HerbertHoover and FranklinDelano Roosevelt do not come
to the Florida Keysin hurricanemonths,"he adds. "There isn't any luck
when rich bastardsmake a war," he concludes.Those who would deter-
mine the time of Hemingway's political conversion from this article
mightreconsiderthe termsin which he expresseshis solicitude over the
veteransor his rage at the "richbastards."
To manycritics,the continuityof isolation appeared brokenby Harry
Morgan's dyingwords in To Have and Have Not, known to have been
placed there in a revisionof the novel afterHemingway'sfirstvisit to
the Spanish front.8"No man alone ain't got a chance," was
spoken by Hemingway'smost outcast hero, the most violent and least
articulateof the whole collection,a rumrunnerwho sought to impress
his wife by picking streetfights.The force of this one speech attracted
great attentionfromreviewers,however.9Granville Hicks thoughtthis
novel superiorto A Farewell to Armsand The Sun Also Rises, measuring
that superiorityin what he held to be Hemingway'snew knowledge of
the economic system.10Yet it is difficultto perceive any greater such
awarenessin the portraitsof bureaucratsand sycophants,let alone the
hero, than was in the earlier equation of the Roosevelt administration
and "starry-eyed bastards." Certainly,Hemingway'smost candid answer
to thesocial questionsof 1937 stillwould have been, "damned if I know."
Hemingway'sintimateknowledgeof Spain, ratherthan these negative
attitudes toward political questions, conditioned his experience in the
Spanish Civil War. Hemingway'sSpain-from the timewhen he saw it in
1922 as a last refugewherehe mightstudyviolent death to his finalpre-
war studyof Spanish characterin "The Capital of the World" "-Imust
be understood.
"The Undefeated"12 was Hemingway'sfirststorywitha Spanish setting,
and it provided the firstliteraryevidence of the motive which had led
him to Spain. Manuel Garcia's violentdeath and the dignitywith which
8 See Malcolm Cowley's untitled reviewof the novel in New Republic, XCIII (October
20, 1937), 305.
9 e.g. Cowley, New Republic, XCIII: "This might be the message that Hemingway
has carried back from Spain, his own free translationof Marx and Engels, 'workersof
the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.'"
10 Untitled review,"Review and Comment,"New Masses, XXV (October 26, 1937),22.
11 Esquire, May, 1936. Reprinted in The First Forty-NineStories and the play, The
Fifth Column (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938).
Hemingway's Spanish Civil War Experience 137
he faced it, as Hemingwaypresentsthem,show much more than a two-

yearaficionado'sappreciationof the bull ring; the situationin thisstory
foreshadowsthe major commentson Spain to be made in Death in the
Afternoon.13 Considerationof Spanish characterbeyond the bull ring is
suggested in The Sun.Also Rises, wherethe vital fiestacelebrantscontrast
with the enervatedtourists.Only Jake Barnes, among these expatriates,
is aware that Brett'sinfatuationforyoung Romero is more than a per-
sonal mistake,that it could be disastrousfor the art and dignityof the
bullfighter, who is a symbolof meaningfulaction beside the foreigner's
inertia.
Hemingway'spersonal identificationwith Spain, suggestedin Barnes's
sympathyforRomero,is passionatelydeclared in Death in theAfternoon.
This union, like that of Fred Henry and Catherine Barkley,was forged
in a world of sensationand palpable meaning,wherepatrioticor political
abstractionswere invalid and abandoned. To emphasize this,he distin-
guishesbetweentwo typesof Americansto be found abroad, the resident
and the tourist.Hemingwayis alwaysthe knowingresident,in his larger
commentson Spain as well as in his expositionof bullfighting."For one
personwho likes Spain," Hemingwayremarked,"there are a dozen who
preferbooks on her." 14 In theseguidebooks,he noted, therewas always
the criticalfailureto understandCastillian attitudeson death and honor.
The Castillian view of death would be apotheosizedin the later descrip-
tion of El Sordo surroundedon a hilltop; Death in the Afternooncon-
tainshis main statementon Castillian honor:
In Spain honoris a veryreal thing.Called pundonor,it means honor,
probity,courage, self-respectand pride in one word. Pride is the
strongestcharacteristicof the race and it is a matterof pundonor not
to show cowardice.15
Pundonor is not an abstraction:
This honor thingis not some fantasythat I am tryingto inflicton
you . . . I swear it is true. Honor to a Spaniard, no matterhow dis-
honest,is as real a thingas water,wine, or olive oil.
In all Spain, Castillians best exemplifypundonor and another essential
quality of Spanish character:"This common sense that theypossess is as
hard and dry as the plains and mesas of Castille and it diminishesin
hardnessand drynessas it goes away fromCastille."16
12 First printed in the German review, Querschnitt,1924.
13 (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1932.)
14 Death in the Afternoon,p. 52.
15 This and the followingquotation are fromDeath in the Afternoon,pp. 91-92.
16 Ibid., p. 264.
The short story,"Capital of the World," dealt with the Castillian

countryboy,Paco, who was certainthat he would become a great torero.
Everyoneat the Madrid pension.where he worked tried to discourage
him, but in a last, fatal experimentwith a chair and kitchenknives,the
boy died "full of illusions."
This shortsummaryof his work suggeststhat Hemingway,in writing
about Spain, has adopted or, at least, has attemptedto interpretSpain
by Spanish values. He could not have seen the Spanish Civil War as
chieflya prefiguring of a greaterwar,much less as anotherincidentin the
class struggle.How thoroughlyhe saw the war as a Spanish struggle
againstforeignaggressionbeyondany considerationof a conflictbetween
the Right and Left of Europe may be judged by comparing"The Old
Man at the Bridge" with any of the pieces of comparable length in the
contemporary literarypamphlet,Salud!, 17 wherehuman suffering, specifi-
cally Spanish suffering, was muffledby partyheroics. Hemingway'sold
man, in a civilian retreatbeforefascisttanks,has no politics and worries
about his possessions.The story,appearing in the same year as The Fifth
Column, makes thisplay with its hero so much more like AmoryBlaine
or PorfirioRubirosa than Robert Jordan, even more anomalous than
when it is consideredsolelyin connectionwithFor Whom theBell Tolls.
Malcolm Cowley suggestedthatRawlings spoke as if he were talkingover
the heads of his audience to the editorsof New Masses.'8 The partyline
is deliverednakedlyenough in Rawlings' pronouncementsas commissar,
but it comes close to being parodied when he dismisseshis mistressas a
"commodity."
Actually, Hemingway contributedonly twice to New Masses during
the war, his firstpublication being a versionof a speech to the American
WritersCongress,entitled "Fascism Is a Lie." 19 It was given at a time
when he was raisingfundsforthe Spanish Republic,20but what he wrote
was unmistakablypersonal:
When men fightfor the freedomof theircountryagainst a foreign

invasion and when thesemen are your friends-some new friendsand
some of long standing-and you know how theyfought,at firstalmost
17 (New York: International Publishers, 1938.) Edited by Alan Calmer. The contrib-
utors were John Malcolm Brinnin, Erskine Caldwell, Kenneth Fearing, S. Funaroff,
James Neugass, Edward Newhouse, Joseph North, Prudencio de Pereda, Kenneth
Rexroth, Edwin Rolfe, Norman Rosten and Vincent Sheean. The contributions of
Neugass and North especially suit the comparison.
18 "Hemingway in Madrid," New Republic, XCVII (November 2, 1938), 367-68.
19 New Masses, XXIII (June 22, 1937), 4.
20 To Have and Have Not was being offeredas a New Masses subscriptionpremium,
while Hemingway was listed as a sponsor for the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish
Democracy and The Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
unarmed,you learn, watchingthem live and fightand die that there

are thingsworse than war. Cowardice is worse,treacheryis worse,and
simpleselfishness
is worse.
Meanwhile, Hemingwayhad returnedto Spain as a correspondentfor
the North American NewspaperAlliance. His dispatchesconcentrateon
the featsof individuals and smallerfightingunits. He is concernedwith
the combatant rather than the political element of the war effort.He
evaluates the InternationalBrigades tersely:since his firstvisit theyhad
become soldiersand "all the romanticsand cowardshad gone home." 21
In a later dispatchhe refutespredictionsof an earlyFranco victory,and
it was his insistenceon an eventual Republican victorythat dominated
his articlesforKen in 1938 and 1939.
Much more than anythinghe had written,the Ken articleswere propa-
ganda pieces.22Some were direct calls for American intervention,while
othersdefendedthe Republic against chargesof atrocitiesand defeatism.
As a mediumforHemingway'sviews,Ken was especiallyappropriatefor
it had declared an editorial policy,simultaneouslyanti-fascistand anti-
communist.23
In these articles,Hemingwayseemed convincedof two factsin world
politics of the thirties.First,Italy was the weak link in the fascistaxis
and the Westerndemocraciesshould have exploited thisweaknessby in-
terventionin Spain.24 Second, the career diplomats of England, France
and the United Stateswere easily impressedby the fascistsand had mis-
informedtheir governmentsabout the Republican chances.25A char-
acteristicstatementfor this series occurs in the second article, "Dying
Well or Badly" (accompanied by some of the grimmestcasualtypictures
ever published:
If the democraticnations allow Spain to be overrunby the fascists
throughtheirrefusalto allow the legal Spanish governmentto buy and
importarmsto combata militaryinsurrectionand fascistinvasionthen
theywill deservewhateverfatebringsthem.
21 "Hemingway Reports Spain," New Republic, XCIII (January 12, 1938), 274. (This
and three subsequent appearances, identicallyentitled,were composed of selectionsfrom
the N.A.N.A. dispatches.)
22 They appeared on a fortnightly basis fromApril 7, 1938 to January 12, 1939.
23 See statementof editorial policy in the firstissue (April 7, 1938) and in subsequent
replies to readers' letters.
24 "The Time Now, The Place Spain," Ken, I (April 7, 1938), 36.
25 "H. M.'s Loyal State Department," Ken, I (June 16, 1938), 36. See also Claude G.
Bowers, My Mission to Spain: Watching the Rehearsal for World War 11 (New York:
Simon and Schuster,1954). The American ambassador to the Spanish Republic (1933-39)
describes his effortat countering fascist propaganda which had induced his govern-
ment, through fear of communism,to maintain its arms embargo.
Hemingway'slast New Masses appearance, his third in all, came in

the "Lincoln Brigade Number."26 It reiteratedhis anti-fascismand con-
firmedthe loyaltieshe had held fromthe beginning of the war. It is
"political" in no othersense.
Our dead live in the hearts and minds of the Spanish peasants, of
the Spanish workers,of all the good simplehonestpeople who believed
in and foughtforthe Spanish Republic. . . . The Fascistsmay spread
over the land, blasting their way with weight of metal bought from
other countries.They may advance aided by traitorsand by cowards.
They may destroycities and villages and try to hold the people in
slavery.But you cannot hold any people in slavery.
This was, according to New Masses editor Joseph North, "a bugle call
for action," but when the magazine next referredto Hemingwayat any
length,it was in an outragedreviewof For Whom theBell Tolls,27which
mustbe consideredbeyondits intrinsicimportanceforwhat it revealsof
Hemingway'sconsideredevaluation of his Spanish Civil War experience.
The reviewer'smostviciouslyinept statementwas that thiswas "a book
about Spain thatwas not about Spain at all." As in so manyNew Masses
reviews,theinflatedstatementconcealed thereal objection.RobertJordan
knowsSpain. The studyof Spain and its literaturehas been his peacetime
occupation. He reflectson Spain and Spanish characteralmost as much
as he considershis missionand its probable fate.The Spanish characters
exemplifyall of the national traitswhich had been considered in the
expositionof Death in theAfternoonand the war reporting.Hemingway
wanted to presentcontinuing,immutabletruthsabout Spain and feltit
necessaryto go beyond Madrid and the political sphere of the war. A
more appropriate stricturethan Alvah Bessie's would be that this was
a novel about the Spanish Civil War whichwas more about Spain, itself.
The nonpolitical nature of For Whom the Bell Tolls can also be
illustratedby comparingJordanwithFred Henry,notingparallels which
existeven thoughHenry fledfromwhat he feltwas meaninglessdestruc-
tion and Jordaninsistedupon a meaningfulsacrifice.Their actionswere
committedto causes which could not command their full intellectual
allegiance. Yet both exercised an independence in private reflection
which each still recognizedto be subordinateto the needs of the larger
cause. Early in the novel (p. 13), Jordan interruptshis thoughtson
Spaniards in this manner: "Turn offthe thinking,now, old timer,old
comrade.You're a bridgeblower.Not a thinker,man." Of course,Jordan
26 "On the American Dead in Spain," New Masses, XXX (February 14, 1939), 3.
27 Untitled review,New Masses, XXXVII (November 20, 1940), 26-29. The reviewer,
Alvah Bessie, was a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade.
made no "separatepeace." Unlike Henry,he knew his enemyintimately

to the point of having somethingto fightagainst. He did not merely
happen to be around when a war broke out. He came to Spain fromthe
remotenessof Missoula, Montana, because he was a dedicated, if not a
doctrinaire,anti-fascist,which, elaborated simply,meant that he had
strongpersonalvalues to defend.His anti-fascism had the precisequality
and intensityof Hemingway'sas articulated in the war dispatches for
N.A.N.A. and Ken.
"Then you are Communist?"
"No, Anti-fascist."28
So Hemingwayinformsus, as JordaninformsFernando.
Anti-fascism, rather than partisan adherence to the Republic, is the
basic creed of the Spanish characters,as well. No one is doctrinairein the
guerrilla camp; those who most precisely identifythemselvesare the
matafascistas.Most clearly,Jordan'scompanionsstand fortraitsof Span-
ish character.One contemporarycritichas writtenmisleadinglyon this
point by assertingthat Pilar is a recurringEarth mothersymbol; Maria,
anotherTrudy, the littleIndian Girl, and the otherSpaniards,all "acci-
dents."29 Certainlythe Gypsyis no "accident,"nor can the bloodthirsti-
ness and obscenityof Agustin,the stolidityof Fernando, the treachery
of Pablo, the benevolence of Anselmo,the idealism of Joaquin and the
religiosityof Lieutenant Berrendo be considered accidental if one con-
siders what Hemingwayhas writtenabout Spain and Spaniards. Pilar,
most singular of all, surelyunites the great Spanish truthsof courage,
pride, cruelty, charity and pundonor. Even Maria, "a Hemingway
woman" liable to the "unreality"chargedhis other heroines,is given a
backgroundof outragedinnocencewhichmade her relationswithJordan
not whollybeyondbelief.
But, in this largelynonpolitical novel, does Hemingwayactually mis-
representthe Republican cause?Does he malign the communistcontribu-
tion to that cause? The descriptionof the massacre in Pilar's village is
full of revolutionarybrutalitiesbeforethe war, but the censureis partly
mitigated:
. . . I know that we did dreadfulthingsto them,too. But it was be-

cause we were uneducated and knew not better.But theydid that on
purpose and deliberately.Those who did that are the last flowering
of what their education has produced. Those are the last flowersof
Spanish chivalry.30
28 For Whom the Bell Tolls (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1940), p. 163.
29 John W. Aldridge, After the Lost Generation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951).
30 For Whom the Bell Tolls, p. 354.
While the fascistsare neverpresentedsympathetically, certainrebels are

seen as religiousfanaticsratherthan black-shirtcaricatures.This admits
the possibilityof an actual "civil" aspect to the war in which Franco's
forceswere not wholly composed of German and Italian technicians.
What was termeda betrayalof the Spanish Republic, or Hemingway's
failure to understandthe Republican cause, was his unflatteringcom-
mentaryon the Russian operation.3' Thus, the actual Andre Marty is
introduced to frustrateeffortsto relieve the guerrillas. The problem
is consideredmoreexplicitlywhen Hemingwaydescribesthe Soviet train-
ing of Spanish leaders.In the beginningof thewar,accordingto Heming-
way,such men as Enrique Lister,El Campesino and Juan Modesto were
like studentsflyingwith dual controls,and the major question as the
war continuedwas how theywould flywhen the controlswould go off.
I wonderhow Lister will be once the dual controlsare gone. But
maybe theywon't go, he thought.I wonderif theywill go. Or whether
theywill strengthen.I wonderwhat the Russian stand is on the whole
business.32
Yet, this "Russian stand" is somewhatjustifiedin a later passage which
also helps to explain whyJordanwillinglysubordinateshis beliefsto the
performanceof his duties.
. . .Gaylord's was theplace whereyou met famouspeasant and worker
Spanish commanderswho had sprungto arms fromthe people at the
startof thewar,withoutanypreviousmilitarytrainingand foundmany
of themspoke Russian. . . . But when he realized how it happened it
was all right.They were peasants and workers.They had been active
in the 1934revolutionand had to fleethe countrywhen it failed and in
Russia theyhad sent them to the militaryacademy and to the Lenin
Institute the Cominternmaintained so that they would be ready to
fightthe next time and have the necessarymilitaryeducation to com-
mand. . . . Now he knew enough to accept the necessityfor all the
deception and what he learned at Gaylord'sonly strengthenedhim in
his belief in the thingsthat he did hold to be true. He liked to know
how it really was not how it was supposed to be. There was always
lyingin a war. But the truthof Lister,Modesto and El Campesino was
betterthan the lies and the legends.33
Thus, Jordan accepts discipline, obeys his commanderswhatever their
nationalityand loyallyturnsoffthe thinkingwhen he has to dynamite
31 From Bessie's review: "Hemingway's sins of omission in the Bell allow the un-
tutored reader to believe that the role of the Soviet Union in Spain was sinisterand
reprehensible."
32 For Whom the Bell Tolls, p. 232.
33 Ibid., pp. 233-34.
a bridge.He is loyal, but, up to the momentof his death, he is an intel-

lectual freeagent. He decides, at one point, that it is all right to love
Maria, "even if thereisn't supposed to be such a thingas love in a purely
materialisticconceptionof society."This last phrase provokesa credo:
. . . Since when did you everhave any such conception?himselfasked.
Never. And you never could have. You're not a real Marxist and you
know it. You believe in Liberty,Equality, and Fraternity.You believe
in Life, Libertyand the Pursuitof Happiness. Don't ever kid yourself
with too much dialectics.They are forsome but not foryou. You have
to know themin ordernot to be a sucker.You have to put manythings
in abeyanceto win a war. If thiswar is lost all of thosethingsare lost.
But afterwardsyou can discard what you do not believe in. There is
plentyyou do not believe and plentyyou do believe in.34
The libertarianmottoesare no accident,"Life, Libertyand the Pursuit
of Happiness" strikingwith special forceagainstthe backgroundof Hem-
ingway'swhole work. Here, he has describedhimselfas an observeron
the Spanish front,while he has describedforRobert Jordanthe termsof
a "separatepeace" afterthe strugglehas been won.
34 Ibid., p. 305.
I11

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Ernest Hemingway's Spanish Civil War Experience

Author(s): David Sanders

"Soldier's Home" symbolizedthe veteran'sisolation frompostwarAmeri-

personal standardsof justice,condemningthe United Statesin much the

he faced it, as Hemingwaypresentsthem,show much more than a two-

The short story,"Capital of the World," dealt with the Castillian

When men fightfor the freedomof theircountryagainst a foreign

unarmed,you learn, watchingthem live and fightand die that there

Hemingway'slast New Masses appearance, his third in all, came in

made no "separatepeace." Unlike Henry,he knew his enemyintimately

. . . I know that we did dreadfulthingsto them,too. But it was be-

While the fascistsare neverpresentedsympathetically, certainrebels are

a bridge.He is loyal, but, up to the momentof his death, he is an intel-

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