User:KWatson/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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Hemingway’s Soviet Russian characters play important parts in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' and they are problematic in a number of ways and on a number of levels. First, the names of General Golz and the journalist Karkov look as though they are real Russian names, but they are not. This is my own (virtual native speaker’s) reaction to these surnames that I have confirmed with actual native speakers of Russian. Kashkin, however, could be a genuine Russian family name. He is a double to Jordan, as they are both explosives experts. Kashkin’s lack of resolve reflects the side of Robert Jordan that is sometimes subject to indecisiveness. The link between the fates of these two is made explicit when we learn that Robert Jordan killed the wounded Kashkin in an act of mercy so that Kashkin would not be tortured by the fascists. Kashkin’s demise is also a foreshadowing of Jordan’s who, as he lies with a broken left thigh, fights off the temptation to take his own life in order to avoid the sort of torture by the fascists he has spared Kashkin.

General Golz has formulated a strategy for winning a battle with the fascists that includes the plan to blow up the bridge, the central, culminating act toward which the plot of ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' inexorably moves. This plan, however, is fraught with danger for Robert Jordan and the others who are supposed to carry it out. If Golz’s indifference to the likely loss of life on the part of those carrying out his orders is on a certain level contemptible, it is more than convincing as a motivation for a general bent on victory at all costs. In one of the many passages of the novel that are so psychologically persuasive, Golz watches the Republican planes take off for battle. Golz, has learned from Robert Jordan via Andrés that the surprise attack he had conceived is no longer a surprise and that “it would be one famous balls up

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 Hemingway’s Soviet Russian characters play important parts in ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' and they are problematic in a number of ways and on a number of levels. First, the names of General Golz and the journalist Karkov look as though they are real Russian names, but they are not. This is my own (virtual native speaker’s) reaction to these surnames that I have confirmed with actual native speakers of Russian. Kashkin, however, could be a genuine Russian family name. He is a double to Jordan, as they are both explosives experts. Kashkin’s lack of resolve reflects the side of Robert Jordan that is sometimes subject to indecisiveness. The link between the fates of these two is made explicit when we learn that Robert Jordan killed the wounded Kashkin in an act of mercy so that Kashkin would not be tortured by the fascists. Kashkin’s demise is also a foreshadowing of Jordan’s who, as he lies with a broken left thigh, fights off the temptation to take his own life in order to avoid the sort of torture by the fascists he has spared Kashkin.
+General Golz has formulated a strategy for winning a battle with the fascists that includes the plan to blow up the bridge, the central, culminating act toward which the plot of ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' inexorably moves. This plan, however, is fraught with danger for Robert Jordan and the others who are supposed to carry it out. If Golz’s indifference to the likely loss of life on the part of those carrying out his orders is on a certain level contemptible, it is more than convincing as a motivation for a general bent on victory at all costs. In one of the many passages of the novel that are so psychologically persuasive, Golz watches the Republican planes take off for battle. Golz, has learned from Robert Jordan via Andrés that the surprise attack he had conceived is no longer a surprise and that “it would be one famous balls up
+Page Break