Mourning and Melancholia in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls Essay

wo and Melancholia in Hemingways For Whom the toll TollsErnest Hemingways For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) begins with a quotationfrom John Donnes Meditation XVII. With this epigraph, Hemingway identifies thesource of his hu piece of music action and defines the connections achieved between human beings through mourning. Donnes argument begins, No man is an island, and it concludes with anassertion of our bond to the dead never send to know for whom the chime tolls it tollsfor thee. Proper mourning acknowledges the losses to our self in the conclusion of another.Hemingways For Whom the Bell Tolls depicts such connections to the dead andexamines the emotional effects of incomplete mourning in terms that parallel Freudsown comments in Mourning and Melancholia(1917. Hogarth Press edition 1937).Hemingways novel about mourning concludes by depicting Robert Jordan, theAmerican volunteer in Spain, as he prepares for his death. Jordan accepts the inevitablenessof this death and he design s a ritual which expresses his commitment to his lover, Maria,and contributes to the successful retirement of the members the guerrilla band (401-10). Heprovides a last effort of affaire in their struggle against fascism and affirms his1Page 2connection to the future day of Spain. In a parallel to the argument of Donnes Meditation,Jordans death while fighting as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War is presented as aloss to fascism suffered by the race of all the republican nations of the world. In areport published in 1938 Hemingway wrote of the deaths of such volunteers of theInternational Brigades, and said, They die fighting for you (Hem on War 293).The picture of Jordans life and death parallels the ... ...ocative that Rickmans edition of Freuds audition appeared shortly before publication of ForWhom the Bell Tolls.Gajdusek, Robert E. (2002). Hemingway In His Own Country. Notre skirt IndianaUniversity of Notre Dame Press.11Page 12Gellhorn, Martha. (1986). The Face of War. untested York Atlantic Press Ed, 1988.Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. (1940 ) Blakiston Philadelphia.________________.By-Line Ernest Hemingway. (1967) young York Scribners.________________ Hemingway on War.(2003 ) Ed. with an Introduction, SeanHemingway. New York Scribners.Myers, Jeffrey. (2000) Hemingway Life into Art. New York Cooper Square PressNelson, Cary (1994). Remembering Spain Hemingways Civil War Eulogy and theVeterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Urbana University of Illinois Press.Winnicott, D.W. Playing and Reality. (1971) capital of the United Kingdom Pelican, 1980.12