The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works: Difference between revisions

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 Though the ''milicianas'' were banned from the battle front, ''guerrillerinas'' continued to work behind the fascist lines, as Maria Teresa Toral describes in her historical account, providing at great personal risk “aid to the {{pg|379|380}} wounded, to the hungry, to the sick guerrilla, who had descended from the sierra to the village.”{{sfn|Toral|1987|p=308}} In ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', Hemingway creates an unforgettable portrait of a ''guerrillerina'' in the sympathetic and psychologically complex character of Pilar. A ''miliciana'' like many other women at the start of the war, she participated in her lover Pablo’s takeover of their village for the Republicans. When the fascists retook the village, she fled into the mountains as the only female member of Pablo’s guerrilla band, not providing food and nursing care to guerrillas who had descended to the village, as Toral describes, but participating in sabotage activities like Robert Jordan’s blowing of the bridge. Though General Golz had noted that “the more irregular the service, the more irregular the life,”{{sfn|Hemingway|1968|p=8}}  Pilar is a most irregular figure indeed. She announces, “Here I command” as she accepts “the allegiance. . . given [by the guerrillas]” once they lose confidence in the increasingly unstable Pablo (55, 53). She is admired as a model of courage by Robert Jordan: “You’re shaking, like a Goddamn woman. What the hell is the matter with you? . . . I’ll bet that Goddamn woman up above isn’t shaking. That Pilar.” {{sfn|Hemingway|1968|p=437}}
-An admirable figure, Pilar is constructed by Hemingway as simultaneously revolutionary and conventional in her military role. While her aberrance draws the most attention, it is her conventionalism that is ultimately most telling. Certainly her physical presence is unusual. She is massive, ugly, even masculine in appearance (in this regard reminiscent of the female soldiers who have historically disguised themselves as men), and she sexually admires both Robert and Maria. Her Gypsy blood is invoked throughout the novel as an explanation of her sexual power and her supernatural ability to read the future and smell death. Having been the lover of three matadors, among more casual liaisons, before becoming Pablo’s woman, she has “the heart of a whore,” according to Pablo (53). When she describes her years of traveling with the matadors, she represents herself as a camp-follower of sorts, typically describing the women present as “gypsies and whores of great category” (185).
+An admirable figure, Pilar is constructed by Hemingway as simultaneously revolutionary and conventional in her military role. While her aberrance draws the most attention, it is her conventionalism that is ultimately most telling. Certainly her physical presence is unusual. She is massive, ugly, even masculine in appearance (in this regard reminiscent of the female soldiers who have historically disguised themselves as men), and she sexually admires both Robert and Maria. Her Gypsy blood is invoked throughout the novel as an explanation of her sexual power and her supernatural ability to read the future and smell death. Having been the lover of three matadors, among more casual liaisons, before becoming Pablo’s woman, she has “the heart of a whore,” according to Pablo.{{sfn|Hemingway|1968|p=53}} When she describes her years of traveling with the matadors, she represents herself as a camp-follower of sorts, typically describing the women present as “gypsies and whores of great category” (185).
 Pilar’s status as guerrilla leader is unusual not only in terms of history but also Hemingway’s canon. But she supplants Pablo only after Robert Jordan arrives, serving largely as symbolic leader while Jordan acts as operational leader. When Pablo returns after having deserted and sabotaged the band, Pilar largely cedes her authority to him, sympathizing with his need to appear as leader before the men he has newly recruited to help blow the {{pg|380|381}} bridge. So by the end of the novel, Pilar willingly shares with Pablo the role of symbolic leader and Jordan continues as operational leader until Pablo takes charge of the band’s escape.