|
-
On this third night, Maria is unable to make love. She feels pain,
which she attributes to \"the things [that] were done\" by her
Nationalist captors. Instead of making love, they make plans to go
to Madrid. They spin elaborately whimsical dreams of how they\'ll spend
a month in a hotel room.
Many people have done what Maria and Robert Jordan are doing:
planning things that will never happen. Can you remember a time when
you\'ve done the same thing- talked with somebody about a future that
was either impossible or very unlikely?
At first Jordan enjoys the fantasizing. Then he realizes he\'s simply
lying. He continues for Maria\'s sake, but it\'s no longer enjoyable.
Pilar has been fantasizing too, whether for her own sake or Maria\'s,
by preparing Maria for her marriage role when she and Jordan return to
the United States to live.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: MALE/FEMALE ROLES Are men dominant in For Whom the Bell
Tolls? Some readers argue that Pilar disproves this. Others feel
that she is only a rare exception. She leads only because Pablo has
relinquished his natural dominance by drunkenness and cowardice. Yet
this same strong, unmistakably-in-charge Pilar instructs Maria in
wifely duties that many readers find subservient.
Although Jordan generally does not act in an excessively
male-dominant manner, at times he is certainly condescending and talks
down to Maria as though she were a child.
How does Jordan\'s behavior strike you? If you\'re female, does such
behavior by a man bother you or do you accept it as simply part of the
culture and the times? If you\'re male, do you find yourself wishing
that man-woman relationships were like Jordan and Maria\'s- with the
man dominant- or is it better when both partners are more equal?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Maria\'s father had been a Republican and the mayor of their village.
Maria describes the execution of her parents by the Nationalists and
her subsequent capture and rape. The story angers Jordan, and he\'s
glad they\'ll be killing tomorrow.
And then he indulges in strange reasoning: when the Nationalists,
the \"flowers of Spanish chivalry,\" raped Maria, they knew better but
acted deliberately and on purpose. His side has done very bad things
too... but out of ignorance (or so he claims).
Is this the thinking of a mature college professor or of a little
child? (\"I couldn\'t help it, but he did it on purpose!\") Is Robert
Jordan a mixture of both?
Then he decides that being killed tomorrow doesn\'t matter as long as
the bridge gets blown properly. Maybe he has experienced all of his
life in these last three days.
|
