User:LogansPop22/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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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).

In representing Pilar in a military role, whether as ''miliciana'' or ''guerrille-'' {{pg|381|382}} ''rina'', Hemingway clearly presents her as sympathetic and admirable, yet he also restricts his representation of her actions to the domestic sphere, ignoring dramatically her military actions as though they were unthinkable or inappropriate—indeed, not to be witnessed. Moreover, insofar as Pilar is represented as a woman comfortable at the battle front, she is represented as a whore—sexually knowledgeable, widely experienced, at ease describing herself in the company of prostitutes, indeed at ease hearing herself described in rough language by the male guerrillas and using such language herself. She is located in binary opposition to Maria, the virgin raped by Nationalist soldiers, who is simultaneously part of and apart from the guerrilla band.

Tellingly, Pilar wants to send Maria, whom she has nursed back to sanity, to a “home” (32, 70)—that is, to the home front. Robert Jordan first promises to send her to a home for war orphans that also provides shelter for female war victims, but when he falls in love with her, he determines instead to locate a home in Madrid and later Montana for her to inhabit as his wife. Agustin tells Jordan that “Pilar has kept her away from all as fiercely as though she were in a convent of Carmelites,” carefully explaining, “Because she sleeps with thee she is no whore. You do not understand how such a

girl would be if there had been no revolution She is not as we are”

(290–91).

In one sense, Hemingway presents in Pilar a revolutionary portrait of a woman active as a soldier at the front, indeed behind enemy lines. Yet in another sense he invokes the familiar stereotype of the female at the battle front as whore (indeed, whore with a heart of gold), while invoking in his portrait of Maria the other familiar stereotype of rape victim. These two women in the otherwise male guerrilla band thus represent the only two historically visible roles for women at war. Moreover, even Pilar is restricted dramatically to the domestic sphere, as Maria always is (to the degree that is possible given the constraints of her environment). Paradoxically, Hemingway participates by these strategies in the historical erasure of women other than the whore and the rape victim from the war front, despite his seemingly revolutionary portrait of Pilar as guerrilla leader.7

But this ongoing historical erasure was countered, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, by the emergence of new professional roles for women at war. The New Woman was first incarnated on the battlefield as the female war nurse.8 This new development was marked in England by the Crimean {{pg|382|383}} War (1853–56) and in the United States by the American Civil War (1861–1865). In part, this new female identity developed in response to the actions of men who were themselves creating a new male identity, that of the war correspondent. William Howard Russell of the London Times is most often cited as the first war correspondent, though other challengers inevitably exist. It was the reporting of Russell and several others, for example Edwin Lawrence Godkin and especially Thomas Chenery, that roused the English public to outrage over the despicable conditions of the British army in the Crimea, especially regarding medical care.9 Florence Nightingale responded to the request for nursing aid (female nurses from France were already on scene), and her “aristocratic background” and “social and political connections” enabled her to overcome the prejudice against sending female nurses to the field (Garrison 12). But the nurses nonetheless suffered under public charges of immodesty and worse—that is, sexual promiscuity and prostitution—because they breached the boundary between home front and war front. They left the private for the public sphere, even though they did so while practicing the traditionally female actions of nurturing and caretaking, often fulfilling specifically domestic functions such as cooking and cleaning. In this regard, Hemingway’s Pilar is ironically like them.

@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 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).
+In representing Pilar in a military role, whether as ''miliciana'' or ''guerrille-'' {{pg|381|382}} ''rina'', Hemingway clearly presents her as sympathetic and admirable, yet he also restricts his representation of her actions to the domestic sphere, ignoring dramatically her military actions as though they were unthinkable or inappropriate—indeed, not to be witnessed. Moreover, insofar as Pilar is represented as a woman comfortable at the battle front, she is represented as a whore—sexually knowledgeable, widely experienced, at ease describing herself in the company of prostitutes, indeed at ease hearing herself described in rough language by the male guerrillas and using such language herself. She is located in binary opposition to Maria, the virgin raped by Nationalist soldiers, who is simultaneously part of and apart from the guerrilla band.
+Tellingly, Pilar wants to send Maria, whom she has nursed back to sanity, to a “home” (32, 70)—that is, to the home front. Robert Jordan first promises to send her to a home for war orphans that also provides shelter for female war victims, but when he falls in love with her, he determines instead to locate a home in Madrid and later Montana for her to inhabit as his wife. Agustin tells Jordan that “Pilar has kept her away from all as fiercely as though she were in a convent of Carmelites,” carefully explaining, “Because she sleeps with thee she is no whore. You do not understand how such a
+girl would be if there had been no revolution  She is not as we are”
+(290–91).
+In one sense, Hemingway presents in Pilar a revolutionary portrait of a woman active as a soldier at the front, indeed behind enemy lines. Yet in another sense he invokes the familiar stereotype of the female at the battle front as whore (indeed, whore with a heart of gold), while invoking in his portrait of Maria the other familiar stereotype of rape victim. These two women in the otherwise male guerrilla band thus represent the only two historically visible roles for women at war. Moreover, even Pilar is restricted dramatically to the domestic sphere, as Maria always is (to the degree that is possible given the constraints of her environment). Paradoxically, Hemingway participates by these strategies in the historical erasure of women other than the whore and the rape victim from the war front, despite his seemingly revolutionary portrait of Pilar as guerrilla leader.7
+But this ongoing historical erasure was countered, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, by the emergence of new professional roles for women at war. The New Woman was first incarnated on the battlefield as the female war nurse.8 This new development was marked in England by the Crimean {{pg|382|383}} War (1853–56) and in the United States by the American Civil War (1861–1865). In part, this new female identity developed in response to the actions of men who were themselves creating a new male identity, that of the war correspondent. William Howard Russell of the London Times is most often cited as the first war correspondent, though other challengers inevitably exist. It was the reporting of Russell and several others, for example Edwin Lawrence Godkin and especially Thomas Chenery, that roused the English public to outrage over the despicable conditions of the British army in the Crimea, especially regarding medical care.9 Florence Nightingale responded to the request for nursing aid (female nurses from France were already on scene), and her “aristocratic background” and “social and political connections” enabled her to overcome the prejudice against sending female nurses to the field (Garrison 12). But the nurses nonetheless suffered under public charges of immodesty and worse—that is, sexual promiscuity and prostitution—because they breached the boundary between home front and war front. They left the private for the public sphere, even though they did so while practicing the traditionally female actions of nurturing and caretaking, often fulfilling specifically domestic functions such as cooking and cleaning. In this regard, Hemingway’s Pilar is ironically like them.