The Spanish Civil War in Literature - Book Report/Review Example

Examining the literary devices used in the novels "Homage to Catalonia", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning" to portray the Spanish Civil War Spanish Civil War has been one of the most important historical backgrounds for the production of great literary pieces, and several significant authors of the twentieth century have produced magnificent literary creations on the civil war. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), a celebrated fictional novel which narrates the story of Robert Jordan, by Earnest Hemingway, As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning (1969), an epic non-fictional account of the Spanish Civil War, by Laurie Lee, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), a personal account of the author’s experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War, by George Orwell are three prime examples of this fact. One of the most important elements about these accounts of the civil war period in Spain is the fact that every author has approached and treated the civil war experience in his particular style. Thus, one gets three beautiful accounts of the same background in the subtlest manner, and a reflective analysis of the works proves the individual narrative techniques of every writer as most distinct. The authors of these literary pieces employ different literary devices in their works such as adjectives, hyperbolic language, use of allusion, etc and each of these devices has immense significance as the authors depend greatly on these in narrating their experiences of the civil war. The contrasting methods of the writers find most valuable in an understanding the different accounts of the experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and the authors have been effective in portraying the picture of the civil war. This paper makes a comparative analysis of the accounts of the civil war experiences by the three authors Orwell, Hemingway, and Lee, focusing on their use of different literary devices to portray the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls narrates the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in one of the anti-fascist guerilla groups during the Spanish Civil War. Jordan is proficient in the use of explosives and he undertakes the task of demolishing a bridge in an attack on the city of Segovia. The narrative techniques used by Hemingway have resulted in wide readership. In the narrative, Robert Jordan reflects the author’s own experiences in the Spanish Civil War and the novel develops chiefly through the thoughts and experiences of this character. The narrator is an American who passes through distinctive experience in Spain and he combats the fascist forces in his own specific ways. The novel attracts many readers as the specific narrative techniques and the literary devices used by Hemingway uncover the absolute viciousness of the civil war. One of the most apparent examples of his use of effective literary devices all through the novel is that the narrator is careful in employing several methods to suit his readers. “Hemingway adopts various unusual tactics to approximate for English-speaking readers the effect of hearing Spanish spoken. For example, he often uses Spanish syntax with English words. Rather than fighting to include in the published novel the various profane and obscene expressions that a rough band of guerrilla fighters might be expected to use, he uses terms like ‘un-nameable,’ ‘unprintable,’ ‘obscenity,’ and ‘filth,’ relying on readers to mentally replace those terms with the appropriate four-letter words.” (Tyler, 122) As there are two forms of ‘you’ in Spanish – a formal and polite ‘you’ and an informal and familiar ‘you’ – the narrator makes use of the archaic English forms ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ to indicate the second form of you in Spanish. Thus the literary devices employed by the narrator of For Whom the Bell Tolls have pertinent role in familiarizing the English readers with Spanish. Similarly, it is obvious that Hemingway gave greater significance to the presentation of his experience to his English readers than concerning much about the exact use of Spanish language. Therefore, many often the writer makes errors with the use of Spanish which fortunately affected his intention of depicting the exact picture of Spanish civil war. For example, one finds that Hemingway makes Robert refer to Maria as ‘rabbit’ in the novel which could be greatly disturbing to the meaning. It is because the Spanish word for rabbit’ is a vulgar slang term referring to a woman’s genitals, and there are many such examples of the author using Spanish words erroneously. In another characteristic narrative technique, Hemingway foreshadows the events in the novel which are yet to come, and this has greatly helped the readers to be closely involved in the narrative. “...Hemingway foreshadows throughout the novel what is to come. For example, Robert knows from the moment he meets Pablo that Pablo has lost heart and is likely to betray the cause. Ominously, Robert relates very early in the novel that Kashkin, Jordans Russian predecessor who had helped the group blow up the train carrying Maria, committed suicide after being captured by the enemy, although later Jordan admits that he shot Kashkin when he was wounded too seriously to escape after completing their last assignment.” (Tyler, 123) There are various such instances in which the author’s foreshadowing technique is evident. The use of archaic words and terms is a specific characteristic of the language used by Hemingway in the novel and there are various cases where the author makes use of transliterations and false cognates. All these factors have contributed to the mounting controversies and negative critical reactions to the novel. However, these specific aspects of the language used by the novelist point to the different literary devices which makes the work unique in comparison to the other writings on Spanish Civil War. The adjectives, archaic language, use of allusion etc in the novel have been specific to the narrative strategy which treats the Spanish experience in a more convincing manner. There is also a strange environment of literary medievalism in the relationship between the protagonist and Maria in the novel which is brought about by the specific narrative techniques used. The example of the use of archaic words such as ‘thou’ also indicates the literary devices of the novelist which attempts to make the Spanish experience close to that of the English experience. In a close reading of the novel, it becomes lucid that the author also makes extensive use of transliterations. That is to say, the dialogues in the novel greatly depend on the implicit direct translation from Spanish which creates overwrought English equivalent terms. Thus, Hemingway makes use of the construction “what passes that” as a transliteration of the Spanish que pasa. (Hemingway, 83) There are also several other examples of such false transliterations in the novel. Thus, one finds “rare” for ‘raro’, “molest” for ‘molestar’ etc and the exact meanings of these terms are ‘strange’ and ‘bother’ respectively. (Gladstein, 81-95) All these characteristics of the language used by the novelist needs to be comprehended as contributing to the literary devices used by the writer to depict the civil war experience. The novelist has been successful in blending reality with fiction and the use of these literary devices helped Hemingway. “In writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway drew upon his experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War much more extensively than is generally recognized. Many of the characters, as well as the events and places of the novel, are based on historical fact and on the exploits of people Hemingway knew or heard of while he was covering the war. It is in this masterful blend of fact and fiction that For Whom the Bell Tolls achieves the status of a classic war novel.” (Martin, 59) The British novelist Laurie Lee’s As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning, the sequel to his semi-autobiographical work Cider with Rosie, gives the romantic account of the writer’s journey through Spain during the civil war. In this celebrated book, which tells the story of a young man who goes to Spain at a time when the country was moving relentlessly towards civil war, Lee gives a clear picture of the Spanish life at the time of the civil war. The work is the exact example of the experience of the author in Spanish civil war and he was familiar with the absolutely filthy experience of the land as well as the absolutely beautiful experience of Spain. His characteristic semi-poetic style was used in the narration of this experience in the most convincing way to his readers and the literary devices help him in eloquently reflecting the spirit and atmosphere of Spanish towns as well as countryside. In his celebrated account of the Spanish civil war in Homage to Catalonia, Orwell makes use of the literary devices in the most effective manner. It is a powerful personal account of Orwell’s experiences and observations in the civil war and the narrative style of the writer makes the book very much appealing to the readers. A chief characteristic of his literary devices is the fact that Orwell was effective in presenting the account from the closest end of his being. George Orwell has long been regarded as a practitioner of literary reportage who gave great significance to getting close to the action. He was so close and eye witness to the Spanish war and revolution in the first six months of 1937, and this close experience of the war situation helped him record these experiences most convincingly in his work. “Homage to Catalonia is one of the best-known examples of the combination of subjective and objective elements in the literary reportage of the Spanish war... The author does not hesitate to inject the persona of the narrator, ‘Orwell’, into the work. This figure…is not Orwell himself but a created figure...” (Bevan, 79) Orwell has been faithful in narrating his personal experiences of the war and revolution in the work Homage to Catalonia and his emotional responses to the experience also forms the specific narrative technique. Thus, there are several such examples of his personal responses to the war and revolution in the work: “his dread of the cold, his hatred of rats, the stench of the trenches, his humiliation on finding that he was frightened under fire, his horror of being shot in the face, and so on.” (Bevan, 79) It is also significant to note that the author narrates some of the events of the civil war which are historically insignificant whereas they are personally important to the author. For example, the work begins with the account of an encounter with an Italian militiaman in Barcelona does not have any significance in relation to the history of the war and revolution, though it is personally important to the author. The work can be best regarded as Bildungsreportage which, like a novel, traces the development of the narrator-protagonist from political naiveté to a committed awareness. Thus, one finds the author frankly confessing his initial lack of knowledge of the political situation in Spain. Though the work Homage to Catalonia is an extensively accepted book, there are several examples of the most vicious sentiments in the narration. Thus, the very opening passage, according to Anthony Daniels, is noticeably obnoxious and the following first sentence is an example. “In the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, the day before I joined the militia, I saw an Italian militiaman standing in front of the officers’ table.” (Orwell) Orwell’s description of the appearance of the people in the street is also important to notice. “In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of the militia uniform.” (Orwell) This factor further points to the personal intentions of the writer who depicts the war and revolution in Spain in a personal way. However, the combination of both subjective and objective elements of Spanish war and revolution can be noticed in the work. In an understanding of Homage to Catalonia by Orwell, it is also important to relate to the personal style of the writer and the work’s strong advocacy of totalitarianism has been considered as the worst aspect of the book. “It is the literary equivalent of an urban myth that the book argues against the Stalinist deformation of socialism, when the very opposite is much nearer the truth. Of course, Orwell does indeed object to the Stalinist resort to lying on an industrial scale, but that is only a minor part of his objection to Stalins policy in Spain. His real objection is that Stalin did not want the radical revolution…to proceed, because he thought that a popular front, in which liberal democrats would be taken into temporary partnership, would be more effective in stopping Franco.” (Daniels) Therefore, the literary devices used in the work suited the personal intentions of the author and the narrative style illustrates this aspect. In a comparative analysis of the three works For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway, As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee, and Homage to Catalonia by Orwell, one concludes that the literary devices used by each author make these writings homogenous in the approach. Though all these works deal ultimately with the Spanish civil war and revolution, the treatment of every author differ from each other which contributed to the uniqueness of every work. Works Cited Bevan, David. Literature and War. Rodopi. 1990. P 79. Daniels, Anthony. “Orwells ‘Catalonia’ Revisited.” New Criterion. Vol. 25. Iss. 6. 2007. P. 11+. Gladstein, M.R. “Bilingual Wordplay: Variations on a Theme by Hemingway and Steinbeck.” The Hemingway Review. Vol. 26. Iss. 1. 2006, 81-95. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1940. P 83. Martin, Robert A. “Hemingways For Whom the Bell Tolls: Fact into Fiction.” Blowing the Bridge: Essays on Hemingway and for Whom the Bell Tolls. Rena Sanderson. (Ed). New York: Greenwood Press. 1992. P 59. Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. as quoted in “Orwells ‘Catalonia’ Revisited.” Anthony Daniels. New Criterion. Vol. 25. Iss. 6. 2007. P. 11+. Tyler, Lisa. Student Companion to Ernest Hemingway. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2001. P 122. Read More