“In Hemingway there is no morality, only ritual ; and For Whom the Bell Tolls admirably illustrates this.” Support, modify or contradict this statement.
Two Schools: - On the question of morality, Hemingway specialists are divided. into
two well-defined camps. One school believes that Hemingway’s honest and uncompromising
standards of thinking and acting contain all that matters about morality in the modern world ;
others dismiss his ideas of right and wrong as crude, neurotic, and intellectually stunted.
There is little hope of reconciling these views but the fact remains that Hemingway’s works
reflect a deep concern with the questions of right and wrong. It is also true that he did not
spell out very clearly his concepts of moral right and wrong because for him the ‘what’ got
transformed into ‘how’. His concern for the observance of ritual overshadowed his morality.
Definition of Morality: - He defined morality in Death in the Afternoon : “I know only
that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad
after.” His writing is pervaded by an ironic tone associated with moral austerity. Honesty,
integrity, honour and truth without having been defined carry strong emotions with them. He,
as is well known, shied away from abstractions, while he has lavished enormous care on
details of how certain acts are to be performed.
Morality Rooted in Something Outside Oneself: - An accepted assumption about morality
is that it is rooted in something outside oneself-say in God, mankind, country or even family.
Obligations to these are not arbitrary, and they are of a fundamental nature. True morality
does not reside in one single act but is comprehensive enough to cover an individual’s entire
conduct.
Ritual Defined: - From the point of view of a strict moralist, ritual is artificial, contrived
and even whimsical. Ritual is a kind of game and a serious game. It creates its own occasions,
its own setting in which to act. But it has its own morality, or rather its own aesthetic. In an
important sense, it is an art to be judged in aesthetic terms. It has been rightly called “a
disciplined rehearsal of right attitudes.” A prescribed series of gestures mechanically
symbolize one’s feelings about ultimate things. The emphasis in ritual is on the performance
of a preconceived drama which has its own meaning. Morality adapts itself to the occasion ;
the form of ritual is fixed. The meaning of ritual is in the action itself.
Jordan’s Naive Belief: - When Jordan came to Spain with a view to fighting against
Fascism he was a naive person. He accepted communism and felt like a religious convert. In
his own words
It gave you a part in something that you could believe in wholly and completely and in which
you felt an absolute brotherhood with the others who were engaged in it. It was something
that you had never known before but that you had experienced now and you gave such
importance to it and the reasons for it that your own death seemed of complete
unimportance, only a thing to be avoided because it would interfere with the performance of
your duty.
Realities of War Destroy That Faith: - Jordan cannot sustain this faith for long. His
belief in communism disappears as he becomes familiar with the ugly realities of war. When
we meet him in the novel, he has no politics. He accepts communist discipline for the
duration of the war because it is the best available. Discipline becomes an arbitrary set of
rules for him––a ritual, in fact.
The Need to Suppress Thinking: - Under these circumstances, it is clear why Jordan
suppresses all thoughts. He understands the role of the communists in Spain but to take his
thinking to its logical conclusion implies that he must give up his activities. He knows who the
peasant commanders in reality are, but he continues to work with them. He understands
Pablo’s intentions wren he brings those five guerrillas with their horses to help Jordan, bat he
keeps his mouth shut. He terms his insoluble problems discipline and goes on functioning
because lie has a bridge to blow up. It is the grand ritual to which he sacrifices truth and
other moral values.
Blowing up the Bridge : A Ritual: - The destruction of the bridge becomes his supreme goal
even when he knows that it is futile to destroy it. Fernando learns in Segovia that Fascists
know of the Republican attack and El Sardo confirms it. But Jordan persists. El Sardo’s death
makes the task all the more difficult and yet his determination to blow up the bridge is
unshaken. Pablo steals his exploding device and detonators, but Jordan has other
alternatives. Since Agincourt, he has found fault with others’ battles, therefore he wants to
fight his own so that it is fought the right way-ritualistically. And all along his pretext is that
he is following Golz’s orders.
Death : A Ritual Too: -
Finally, when he has to face death, the earlier feeling of the
brotherhood of mankind is no longer there. Death is no longer unimportant for he wants to
live. Hemingway specifically shows that Jordan’s death is to be a waste, that it does not
contribute substantially to the cause because the attack of which it is a part is doomed to
failure by bad communications. And Jordan is aware of the waste, and that by blowing up the
bridge and sacrificing himself no useful purpose will be served. In fact, he is prepared to
sacrifice the guerrillas with whom he has established strong ties of loyalty, friendship and
love. His courageous encounter with death, when it finally happens, has become almost
wholly a ritual action. The emphasis all the time is on correct acting and correct dying. He
An Aesthetic Experience: - In the last scene Jordan is no different than Romero in the bullring
who must give a. perfect, demonstration. The odds do not matter ; his performance will
be appreciated by a few aficianados. There are no moral questions left, or at least they are
so oversimplified that at they do not matter. The beauty of the act lies in its correctness. The
audience plays up the aesthetic character of the performance, and also links up with the fact
that primitive ritual is almost always public and tribal ; calling for some sense of community.
The ritual fails to effect moral good in the last analysis Hemingway does not seem to have
distinguished clearly between ritual and morality.
Two Schools: - On the question of morality, Hemingway specialists are divided. into
two well-defined camps. One school believes that Hemingway’s honest and uncompromising
standards of thinking and acting contain all that matters about morality in the modern world ;
others dismiss his ideas of right and wrong as crude, neurotic, and intellectually stunted.
There is little hope of reconciling these views but the fact remains that Hemingway’s works
reflect a deep concern with the questions of right and wrong. It is also true that he did not
spell out very clearly his concepts of moral right and wrong because for him the ‘what’ got
transformed into ‘how’. His concern for the observance of ritual overshadowed his morality.
Definition of Morality: - He defined morality in Death in the Afternoon : “I know only
that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad
after.” His writing is pervaded by an ironic tone associated with moral austerity. Honesty,
integrity, honour and truth without having been defined carry strong emotions with them. He,
as is well known, shied away from abstractions, while he has lavished enormous care on
details of how certain acts are to be performed.
Morality Rooted in Something Outside Oneself: - An accepted assumption about morality
is that it is rooted in something outside oneself-say in God, mankind, country or even family.
Obligations to these are not arbitrary, and they are of a fundamental nature. True morality
does not reside in one single act but is comprehensive enough to cover an individual’s entire
conduct.
Ritual Defined: - From the point of view of a strict moralist, ritual is artificial, contrived
and even whimsical. Ritual is a kind of game and a serious game. It creates its own occasions,
its own setting in which to act. But it has its own morality, or rather its own aesthetic. In an
important sense, it is an art to be judged in aesthetic terms. It has been rightly called “a
disciplined rehearsal of right attitudes.” A prescribed series of gestures mechanically
symbolize one’s feelings about ultimate things. The emphasis in ritual is on the performance
of a preconceived drama which has its own meaning. Morality adapts itself to the occasion ;
the form of ritual is fixed. The meaning of ritual is in the action itself.
Jordan’s Naive Belief: - When Jordan came to Spain with a view to fighting against
Fascism he was a naive person. He accepted communism and felt like a religious convert. In
his own words
It gave you a part in something that you could believe in wholly and completely and in which
you felt an absolute brotherhood with the others who were engaged in it. It was something
that you had never known before but that you had experienced now and you gave such
importance to it and the reasons for it that your own death seemed of complete
unimportance, only a thing to be avoided because it would interfere with the performance of
your duty.
Realities of War Destroy That Faith: - Jordan cannot sustain this faith for long. His
belief in communism disappears as he becomes familiar with the ugly realities of war. When
we meet him in the novel, he has no politics. He accepts communist discipline for the
duration of the war because it is the best available. Discipline becomes an arbitrary set of
rules for him––a ritual, in fact.
The Need to Suppress Thinking: - Under these circumstances, it is clear why Jordan
suppresses all thoughts. He understands the role of the communists in Spain but to take his
thinking to its logical conclusion implies that he must give up his activities. He knows who the
peasant commanders in reality are, but he continues to work with them. He understands
Pablo’s intentions wren he brings those five guerrillas with their horses to help Jordan, bat he
keeps his mouth shut. He terms his insoluble problems discipline and goes on functioning
because lie has a bridge to blow up. It is the grand ritual to which he sacrifices truth and
other moral values.
Blowing up the Bridge : A Ritual: - The destruction of the bridge becomes his supreme goal
even when he knows that it is futile to destroy it. Fernando learns in Segovia that Fascists
know of the Republican attack and El Sardo confirms it. But Jordan persists. El Sardo’s death
makes the task all the more difficult and yet his determination to blow up the bridge is
unshaken. Pablo steals his exploding device and detonators, but Jordan has other
alternatives. Since Agincourt, he has found fault with others’ battles, therefore he wants to
fight his own so that it is fought the right way-ritualistically. And all along his pretext is that
he is following Golz’s orders.
Death : A Ritual Too: -
Finally, when he has to face death, the earlier feeling of the
brotherhood of mankind is no longer there. Death is no longer unimportant for he wants to
live. Hemingway specifically shows that Jordan’s death is to be a waste, that it does not
contribute substantially to the cause because the attack of which it is a part is doomed to
failure by bad communications. And Jordan is aware of the waste, and that by blowing up the
bridge and sacrificing himself no useful purpose will be served. In fact, he is prepared to
sacrifice the guerrillas with whom he has established strong ties of loyalty, friendship and
love. His courageous encounter with death, when it finally happens, has become almost
wholly a ritual action. The emphasis all the time is on correct acting and correct dying. He
must attain ritual correctness.
“You follow orders. Follow them and do not think beyond them.”
His last battle and death are “a festival” for him ; he has become so dispassionate
about his own death.An Aesthetic Experience: - In the last scene Jordan is no different than Romero in the bullring
who must give a. perfect, demonstration. The odds do not matter ; his performance will
be appreciated by a few aficianados. There are no moral questions left, or at least they are
so oversimplified that at they do not matter. The beauty of the act lies in its correctness. The
audience plays up the aesthetic character of the performance, and also links up with the fact
that primitive ritual is almost always public and tribal ; calling for some sense of community.
The ritual fails to effect moral good in the last analysis Hemingway does not seem to have
distinguished clearly between ritual and morality.
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