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
Robert Jordan tells Agustin and Anselmo to get down while a group of fascist cavalry walk by their position. Jordan can see the faces of the men, and one of them turns toward the opening in the rocks where the machine gun has been placed. Jordan reflects that “you hardly ever see [the fascists] at such range”; he has his finger on the gun trigger, but he does not shoot. The men move away, and Agustin says that they could have killed all four of them. Another body of cavalry approaches. Jordan tells Anselmo to go to the post where he was positioned yesterday, and they discuss Pablo, who is “much smarter” than he seems.
Robert Jordan is purposefully careful about attacking the fascists, since he does not want to cause a “massacre” before the bridge offensive: he needs all the men he can get to carry out the explosion. War, to Jordan, requires self-control and careful strategy, not just audacity and the capacity to act quickly and violently.
Themes
Jordan says that if they do not win the war, there will be no revolution nor any Republic, and none of them will live. Anselmo says that they should win the war and then shoot no one, then go on to govern justly so those that fought against them will be educated to see their errors. Agustin says that they will have to “shoot many.” Jordan asks if Agustin understands why they didn’t kill the cavalry groups, and he reflects that the Spaniards have killing as an “extra sacrament”; “they are the people of the Auto de Fé; the act of faith.” He wonders if he has ever been corrupted by it, and he tells himself to admit that he has liked to kill, “as all who are soldiers by choice have enjoyed it at some time whether they lie about it or not.”
Once again, Robert Jordan reflects that the Spaniards he has met have disturbing views about killing, since they are all too willing to kill without considering the consequences: killing, Jordan believes, is part of their history and traditions. (Auto de Fé, or Auto-da-fé, was the ritual act of public physical penance during the Spanish Inquisition.) Jordan also seems to be becoming slightly more self-aware, though, able to draw more parallels between himself and his fellow fighters, since he recognizes that he himself has enjoyed killing, however perverse this enjoyment seems to him.
Themes
