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This chapter is notable for its gruesomely graphic account of a
Loyalist takeover of a Nationalist town, complete with barbaric ritual
executions. Pilar relates the incidents to Jordan and Maria as the
three of them make their way to El Sordo.
But Hemingway accomplishes two other purposes earlier in the
chapter, before Pilar\'s gory account begins.
With one exception (relaying her \"sadness\" to Jordan) we\'ve seen
Pilar only as a strong, practical leader who wants to get the business
of war done. But on the way to El Sordo, it\'s Pilar who wants to
stop and rest, take in the beauty of the surroundings, and bathe her
feet in a stream. So even Pilar, the strong, rough-hewn woman soldier,
has a side that wants to be an ordinary person, enjoying simple things
like the rush of cold water across bare feet.
Pilar is ugly- so much so that she cannot risk going to a Fascist
city. She\'s known to be a Loyalist, and her exceptional ugliness makes
her instantly noticeable. Her reflections of what it\'s like to be ugly
on the outside but to feel beautiful on the inside make a poignant
scene. In spite of her ugliness, Pilar has not lacked for lovers.
She recites the cycle of each relationship. At first, love blinds both
the man and herself to her unattractiveness. Then, \"for no reason,\"
the man notices the ugliness. He leaves, no longer blind. And neither,
anymore, is the woman. She realizes all over again that she is ugly.
In Pilar\'s story of the Loyalist assault on a Nationalist town, we
see a completely different Pablo. He is energetic, decisive,
aggressive- and almost unbelievably cruel. Can you imagine these
qualities in the Pablo you\'ve seen so far? If so, what is it that
you\'ve noticed in the usually drunk and \"cowardly\" Pablo that makes it
easy to believe he could have been aggressive and cruel?
With Pablo in charge, the Loyalists took over the Nationalist
barracks. The wounded were killed outright. Four soldiers remained. In
a stroke of irony, Pablo got instructions from one of them on how to
use the Mauser pistol he had taken from a dead officer. Then he made
them kneel and calmly killed each of them with it.
But Pablo wanted more than the slaughter in the barracks. He
wanted to taste revenge and blood, and to hear the screaming of the
town\'s Fascist sympathizers as they were savagely beaten before dying.
These prominent men of the town had been seized in their homes at
the same time the assault on the barracks had begun. Then they were
taken to the town hall and kept there.
Pablo organized the town square as if for a celebration. Citizens
were arranged in two lines leading from the door of the town hall to
the edge of a cliff. Each was given a flail.
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NOTE: A flail is an old-fashioned tool for hand-threshing grain.
It consists of a long staff with another shorter and thicker pole
attached at the end of the staff by a hinge or a heavy cord so that it
can swing freely. The damage to a human body from a strongly wielded
flail would be considerable.
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One by one, the fascists were taken from the town hall and made to
run the gauntlet of the flailing lines. The citizens who had
instruments even more torturous and lethal than flails (such as
sickles and pitchforks) were put at the end of the gauntlet, by the
cliff. This was to prevent any of the fascists from being killed too
soon- before they made it through the entire line.
At first the peasants were uncertain; this was not their idea. But
as one man after another came from the town hall and went staggering
to his death, they became cruel. They began to enjoy it.
They were drinking, of course, but Pilar says they were overcome
by a drunkenness caused by something other than wine, a
\"drunkenness\" that comes from great ugliness.
Perhaps the ultimate in ugliness came with the execution of Don
Guillermo, a fascist storeowner. Pilar points out that he at least
should have been executed quickly and with dignity. He was a fascist
in name only, and his wife had remained a Catholic. Ironically, the
flails and other tools that the peasants were using came from his
store.
Yet, with his wife watching and screaming, Don Guillermo was
brutally killed before he even got to the edge of the lines and the
cliff.
And then the situation became even uglier. Impatient with waiting
for the men to be released one by one from the town hall, the mob
stormed the building and attacked the remaining fascist prisoners in a
slashing frenzy of sickles and pitchforks and reaping hooks.
Pablo sat calmly watching.
They had taken the town. But Pilar was disgusted with the brutality.
As for Pablo, he \"liked it... all of it.\"
This chapter has been described as assaulting the reader with its
explicit ugliness. Beyond question it\'s powerful. But it\'s also a
puzzle. The Spanish Civil War was filled with atrocities committed
by both sides. Yet in the one chapter that describes such a scene,
Hemingway chose to feature senseless, inhumane brutality committed
by the side he himself favored: the Republic.
He even crowns it with a pathetic yet ludicrous scene. A drunken
Loyalist pours wine over a dead body and tries to set it afire.
Failing, he finally gives up the attempt, drinks the remaining wine
instead, and sits in a stupor patting the dead body.
Why put your own side in such a bad light? Obviously, it shows us
a very different Pablo. Perhaps Hemingway wanted to show that his book
was objective despite his close ties to the Loyalists. Both sides
are capable of atrocities, not just the Nationalists.
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NOTE: Terrorism and atrocities occur in almost any war. There were
many during the Spanish Civil War, although reports were sometimes
sensationalized and exaggerated in the press. Republicans and
Nationalists were equally guilty, but each side tended to excuse its
behavior on grounds that atrocities committed by the other side were
worse. The incident recounted by Pilar in Chapter 10 is based on
actual events in the city of Ronda (near Malaga), where victims were
thrown over cliffs.
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