Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in For Whom the Bell Tolls, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love in War
Cultural Connections
Violence, Cowardice, and Death
The Eternality of the Present
Summary
Analysis
After eating, Robert Jordan, Maria, and Pilar leave El Sordo’s. Pilar is beginning to sweat, and her face looks pallid, so Jordan insists that they rest; Pilar is determined to keep going but finally relents. Sitting under a pine tree, she apologizes to Maria for calling her a “whore” and says that Jordan can have Maria: she tells Jordan that she has never wanted Maria, though she is “very jealous” of him. Pilar tells Maria that she is “no tortillera,” since she is a “woman made for men,” but she cares deeply for Maria.
Pilar’s love for Maria is not sexual (she tells her that she is not a “tortillera,” a derogatory term for lesbian), but maternal. Pilar views Maria as her progeny, and Maria seems to provide her with comfort and solace during war—suggesting that in war, non-romantic, familial love has the same kind of restorative, healing potential as romantic love.
Themes
Pilar says that Robert Jordan can have his “rabbit,” saying that she heard him call Maria by that nickname this morning. Jordan, embarrassed, calls Pilar a “very hard woman.” Pilar says she is “so simple [she is] very complicated,” and Jordan says that he is neither “very complicated” nor “so simple.” Pilar says she is also “gross” but “very delicate,” and that she will leave Maria and Jordan alone; she is not jealous of Robert Jordan, but she was angry at Joaquin because she saw from his look how ugly she seemed to him. She is jealous of Maria’s youth, too. Pilar goes off to the camp by herself, leaving Jordan and Maria alone together. Jordan insists that they “go together,” but Maria tells him to let Pilar go.
Here, Hemingway again draws a distinction between male and female characters in the novel: whereas Pilar is nuanced, both “simple” and “confident,” jealous and insecure but also powerful and commanding, Jordan does not openly lay claim to his flaws (or any complications in his personality) in the same way that Pilar does. Jordan seems to want to maintain a projection of steadfast, secure masculinity, and he rarely allows himself to become vulnerable with others—though Maria has begun to help him.
Themes
