User:LogansPop22/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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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.

Provocatively, Pilar’s combat activities are never dramatized in the novel, despite her putative role as guerrilla leader. For example, though she identifies herself as an active participant in the initial Republican takeover of her town, thereby sharing moral responsibility for its excesses, her description reveals her to have functioned largely as an observer. She watches Pablo execute the four ''guardia civiles''. She stands in the gauntlet through which fascists run to their death though she never wields a flail. She leaves the gauntlet to watch from a bench after becoming sickened by the action. She does not enter the bullring where the remaining fascists are imprisoned, instead witnessing their execution while standing on a chair. Even then she misses the final horrific events because the chair breaks. Pilar sums up her experience by unconscious reference to her role as witness rather than participant: “That was the end of the killing of the fascists in our town and I was glad I did not ''see'' more of it” (126, emphasis mine).

As a member of the guerrilla band, she participates in the dynamiting of a train, but the only action of Pilar that is actually represented involves her rescue of Maria, who is being transported to prison.6 Pilar insists that the guerrillas carry Maria away, beating them when they want to drop her during the dangerous retreat, and also carrying Maria herself. Even during Jordan’s military action, when Pilar directs her own small band above the bridge, separate from Pablo and his small band below the bridge, she is never represented in actual battle (even though gunfire is reported from her position), in contrast to the male characters whom we actually see shooting at the enemy—Robert, Anselmo, Rafael, even Pablo shooting ineffectually at a tank. In short, we never see Pilar in the act of shooting a gun, only holding a gun, carrying a gun, or reloading guns for the men. Instead, Pilar is almost al- ways represented performing domestic activities—cooking, cleaning, sewing. When Pilar declares herself leader, Pablo grudgingly cedes his position while simultaneously undermining her power by commanding her to perform her domestic duty: “‘All right. You command,’ he said. ‘And if you want he [Jordan] can command too.’ . . . He paused. ‘That you should command and that you should like it. Now if you are a woman as well as a commander, that we should have something to eat’” (56–57).

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 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.
+Provocatively, Pilar’s combat activities are never dramatized in the novel, despite her putative role as guerrilla leader. For example, though she identifies herself as an active participant in the initial Republican takeover of her town, thereby sharing moral responsibility for its excesses, her description reveals her to have functioned largely as an observer. She watches Pablo execute the four ''guardia civiles''. She stands in the gauntlet through which fascists run to their death though she never wields a flail. She leaves the gauntlet to watch from a bench after becoming sickened by the action. She does not enter the bullring where the remaining fascists are imprisoned, instead witnessing their execution while standing on a chair. Even then she misses the final horrific events because the chair breaks. Pilar sums up her experience by unconscious reference to her role as witness rather than participant: “That was the end of the killing of the fascists in our town and I was glad I did not ''see'' more of it” (126, emphasis mine).
+As a member of the guerrilla band, she participates in the dynamiting of a train, but the only action of Pilar that is actually represented involves her rescue of Maria, who is being transported to prison.6 Pilar insists that the guerrillas carry Maria away, beating them when they want to drop her during the dangerous retreat, and also carrying Maria herself. Even during Jordan’s military action, when Pilar directs her own small band above the bridge, separate from Pablo and his small band below the bridge, she is never represented in actual battle (even though gunfire is reported from her position), in contrast to the male characters whom we actually see shooting at the enemy—Robert, Anselmo, Rafael, even Pablo shooting ineffectually at a tank. In short, we never see Pilar in the act of shooting a gun, only holding a gun, carrying a gun, or reloading guns for the men. Instead, Pilar is almost al- ways represented performing domestic activities—cooking, cleaning, sewing. When Pilar declares herself leader, Pablo grudgingly cedes his position while simultaneously undermining her power by commanding her to perform her domestic duty: “‘All right. You command,’ he said. ‘And if you want he [Jordan] can command too.’ . . . He paused. ‘That you should command and that you should like it. Now if you are a woman as well as a commander, that we should have something to eat’” (56–57).