Blazian Perry H istory 202, Section 2
Book Response
For Whom the Bell Tolls
By: Ernest Hemingway
Published by: Scribner, New York Fi rst paperback edition by Scribner: 2003
Ernest Hemingway spent two years in Spain during the Civil War, acting as a journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance. His experiences there became the inspiration for him to write For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway wrote the novel to draw attention to the horrors of mechanized war. He also wished to show the pitiable state of the Spanish people, the large majority not being politically involved in the war, but became victims of it nonetheless. The main argument the novel presents in that of an anti-war in sentiment, an apparent effort to dispel the romantic perception of war that many Americans held at that time. The view of war that Hemingway held seems to have been shared by many of his contemporary peers. As many as 2,000 Americans volunteered to join the Spanish Loyalist or Republican cause, and many of those were journalists writing with the intent of casting light on war to show how truly horrific it was. Some of the best known journalists to cover the war were individuals such as George Orwell, Martha Gellhorn and Arthur Koestler. Like
Hemingway, these writers favored the Loyalist cause, but wrote with anti-war themes in an effort to lessen overall support for the war.