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Up to this point scenes in which Robert Jordan is present have
dominated the novel. The few exceptions include the scene in which
Pablo talks to his horses at the end of Chapter 5 and the chapter in
which Anselmo reflects on the enemy soldiers in the mill followed by a
brief look inside the mill itself to listen to them. But Chapter 27
belongs completely to El Sordo.
This other guerrilla leader, so unlike Pablo, went to steal horses
for the retreat after the bridge is blown up. The snow enabled the
Nationalists to follow the guerrillas, and now they\'ve been forced
to make a defense on a hill.
There are five men left on the hilltop. Four are wounded,
including El Sordo himself. They\'re in pain, and El Sordo ironically
refers to death as an aspirin. He has shot to death one of the wounded
horses and used the body to plug the gap between two rocks so that
he can fire over it at the enemy.
Joaquin, the youngest in the group and the only remaining
idealist, parrots the Communist slogan: \"Hold out and fortify and
you will win.\" The slogan evokes an expletive from one of his less
\"illusioned\" comrades.
Joaquin tries another, \"It is better to die on your feet than to
live on your knees,\" but gets the same response.
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NOTE: LA PASIONARIA Joaquin is quoting Dolores Ibarruri, a
Communist heroine known as La Pasionaria. Always dressed in black, she
made passionate pro-Republic speeches in Madrid, urging the people
to resist Nationalist attempts to capture the city. \"It is better to
die...\" began one of her most famous exhortations. She was greatly
admired by the Loyalists. Yet the theme of hypocrisy emerges here when
one of the guerrillas maintains that her own son is safely away in the
Soviet Union.
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El Sordo\'s men have killed some of the Nationalists who foolishly
tried to storm the hill, but the guerrillas are doomed and know it.
They can hold out for a while; however, the enemy needs only to
bring a trench mortar (a short cannon for firing shells at a high
angle) or send planes, and the battle will be over quickly.
Hemingway gives us an earthy image of the hill on which El Sordo and
his men have been forced to make a defense. To El Sordo it looks
like a chancre (an ulcer caused by syphilis) with themselves as the
pus.
Dying is easy to El Sordo. He does not fear it. He can accept it.
But he hates it. He has no glorious sacrificial view of death. Perhaps
such a view can come only from those engaged in the theory of
revolution- not from those engaged in the devastating details of
waging such a war.
El Sordo tricks the enemy into thinking the men on the hill have
committed suicide. The Nationalist soldiers try to determine if this
is the case by baiting them with increasingly gross insults. Their
captain (Hemingway lets us know he is not quite rational) stands
atop a boulder in the open and dares someone to kill him.
No response.
The captain then strides up the hill. El Sordo is sad that only
one enemy soldier will be killed by his ploy, but at least it\'s a
major officer. Referring to his enemy as Comrade Voyager (on the
journey to death), El Sordo shoots him. The Nationalists resume firing
on the hill. But now the planes come too, and El Sordo begins his last
stand. Hemingway\'s description makes it one of the most powerful
episodes in the novel. Along with the rest of this chapter, it
overflows with the themes of For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The droning of the planes has weakened the young Joaquin\'s
idealistic bravado, but he still recites the slogans of La Pasionaria-
until the planes get close.
Then Joaquin, the officially atheistic Communist, switches to the
Hail Mary! When the planes are actually overhead, he interrupts his
Hail Mary and begins the Act of Contrition, a prayer expressing sorrow
for sin.
But the machine gun is roaring over his head and the enemy planes
are roaring over the hill and Joaquin cannot remember the Act of
Contrition. All he can remember is the final phrase of the Hail
Mary: \"...and at the hour of our death.\" Many readers see Joaquin\'s
plight as one of the most moving in the entire novel. He is a
classic victim of the Spanish Civil War, loyal to the Republican cause
but still tied to his Catholic roots.
The planes do their job well. Very quickly there is no one left
alive on the hill except an unconscious Joaquin. With the captain
dead, Lieutenant Berrendo is in charge of the Nationalist troops on
the hill. Within a few paragraphs, Berrendo displays a conflicting
spectrum of conduct ranging from decency to butchery.
Finding Joaquin still alive, Berrendo makes the sign of the cross
and \"gently\" shoots him. This may be seen as a humane act by the
Lieutenant. But then he orders his men to cut the heads from the
dead bodies and put them in a poncho to bring back for purposes of
\"proof and identification.\"
He prays for the soul of one of his own soldiers before leaving
the scene because he doesn\'t want to see the beheading he himself
has ordered.
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