For Whom The Bell Tolls

 

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway

This an action-drama book where the central theme in the storyline is to blow up a bridge.  The duration of the story is four days and takes 500 pages to cover.  In classic Hemingway style he blends the time period, setting, character development, and moral message into the mission of blowing up the bridge.  The time period is early WWII set in Spain with the Spanish Fascist in league with  German allies faced off  against the newly formed Spanish Republicans.  In that aspect the reader learns of the internal Spanish tensions as well as the goal to fend off Germany. 

The key protagonist is Robert-Jordan, an American who is tasked with an assignment to blow up a bridge in the mountains of Spain.  He hooks up with a band of Republican guerilla fighters and is holed up in a cave near the targeted bridge.  Each character’s personal story that drives his moral conscious is detailed in the course of the story.  Hemingway diverts into what is immediately on a characters’ mind as he is executes on orders from Robert-Jordan.  While four days in the cave, the dynamic interplay between all the members of the guerilla band adds robust color to the mind of man.  Two moral questions are addressed.  First is when is it ok to kill another man.  Second is confidence found in courage.  If any of the members see a lack of confidence found courage, the other members plot to rid him, up to killing him. 

 Standout characters are Pillar and older battleaxe of a woman who becomes Robert Jordan’s “right hand man”.  And Maria, a young tender woman, beaten up by the enemy, who falls into the arms of Robert-Jordan.  Hemingway brings actions, suspense, drama of moral conscious, and love into focus around one mission.  Blow up a bridge.  Will they be successful?  Will Robert-Jordan and Maria live happily ever after? Read the book and find out.