Por Quién Doblan Las Campanas De Hemmingway. Análisis

“The smell of Death”. Pilar in For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway

In Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, his best resembling of the Spanish Civil War, there is a great inquiry in human’s behaviour. Apart from the reflection of its main character’s thoughts, Hemingway focused his attention in Pilar and the description of her behaviour by means of her facts. That is why Pilar appears to thereader as a complex, but at the same time, interesting character.
In this essay I shall try to explain the main features that define this character in such a way that it seems she steals some of the prominence to Robert Jordan, the original main character of this novel.


The first feature of this character that the author offers us is her figure. When Anselmo leads Robert Jordan to Pablo’scamp, the figure of Pilar comes out from the cave, so that Robert was taken by her. Hemingway describes her as a black hair woman, with deep grey eyes and a general rude appearance; a woman that shares physical characteristics with the gypsies. In the development of the story we will hear Pilar saying that she is an ugly woman, but the fact is that, it does not seem that it affects her.
What isreally important for the development of the story is her character. Pilar’s behaviour changes the entire story. The reader feels that the members of the guerrilla, including Robert Jordan, are nothing but puppets tied to Pilar’s commands. When Anselmo is leading Jordan to the camp, he tells him that the leader of the guerrilla is a man called Pablo, but once we keep on reading the novel, we noticethat this is not the exact state of the group. Pilar, as a character of the novel, suffers a great change in her treatment by the author. When Robert Jordan first arrives to the cave, Pilar is always referred as “the woman of Pablo”. She is described as the person who is in charge of keeping the cave together with María. She is described as a usual woman in the time would be described. It seemsthat in their first contact with the foreigner, the guerrilla wants to show off that the keep the normal and expected status. However, this kind of reference disappears early in the novel due when she starts to control the group again. From this moment she will always by called as Pilar. Edward F. Staton has written about the situation of the cave as a Hemingway’s attempt to reflect the real statusof women in the Spanish society:
“The situation at the guerrilla camp is a microcosm of Spanish society: as many writers have observed, Spain is a nominal patriarchy controlled beneath the surface by women. Most of the critics usually refer to “Pablo’s cave” and “Pablo’s camp”, but we know it is the woman who dominates there” (F. Staton, 1989, p. 167)
The first night, Robert Jordan is thespectator of Pilar’s leadership confirmation:
“Have you not heard? Do you still believe that you command here?”
“Yes”, Pablo said. “Here I command.”
“Not in joke,” the woman said. “Here I command! Haven’t you heard la gente? Here no one commands but me.” (Hemingway, 1951, p.60)
As we can see in this quote, Pilar is completely aware of her state of leadership and during the novel we will see how sheexerts her power in many ways.

The influence of Pilar is noticeable, mainly, in two characters of the novel. We will comment first on her influence in María. María is a young girl who has suffered many abuses by the fascists as she relates to Jordan one night. The only reason for her to live with Pablo’s gang is that Pilar insisted on taking her with them when they found her alone andfrightened during a breakout. Since that moment, María obeyed every order coming from Pilar. Pilar has shaped María’s character in every sense. We can see how she influences on her in many passages of the novel, as for example when Pilar teaches María the way she has to behave when she is with Jordan:
“You may stay here, guapa, if you want,” he said after a while when the food was all eaten.
“Nay”, she...