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This chapter opens with a powerful consideration of the theme of
killing and in so doing illustrates Robert Jordan\'s change in
attitude.
That morning, Jordan had killed a young Nationalist cavalryman, an
insignificant incident in military terms, and to Jordan, involving
simply another one of the enemy.
But now Jordan is looking through the young man\'s papers. There\'s
a letter from his sister, with news of his parents and his village.
A second letter is from the soldier\'s fiance, frantic with worry about
his safety.
Suddenly Robert Jordan doesn\'t want to read any more of the man\'s
letters. They\'re painful proof that this was not just another one of
the faceless \"them.\" This was a man- with a mother, a father, a
sister, and a girl he loved.
Jordan reflects, in a line characteristic of Hemingway\'s irony, that
you never kill anyone you want to kill in a war.
The dead soldier\'s letters lead Jordan into a lengthy interior
monologue. Does he have a right to kill? Of course not. But he \"must\"-
\"necessary evil\" again.
He has killed more than twenty people so far. Only two of them
were fascists, so far as he knows. Thus, he concludes, he has actually
been killing the very people he likes and wants to help: ordinary
Spanish citizens.
But they oppose the cause. The cause is right. So he must kill in
order to prevent something worse from happening. That bit of theory
doesn\'t relieve his mounting guilt either. He tells himself to stop
this train of thought. It\'s going to keep him from being a coldly
efficient soldier.
What does Robert Jordan believe in? Not all the things he claims
to believe, so that he can justify being here in this war, killing
people. He finally admits this to himself.
Is Robert Jordan, the idealistic liberal and highly educated
American partizan, really Robert Jordan, the hypocrite? Not too long
ago, he reflected that secretly he enjoyed killing.
Then he says that above all else, love is the most important thing
to a human being, whether it lasts for a long life or for just a
day. Does he really believe that- or is he trying to make himself feel
better about the next twenty-four hours?
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