However, the author's popularity appeared to be waning. His only novel of the 1930s,
To Have and Have Not (1937), was not as successful as his previous works. Shortly after covering the war, he decided to write an ambitious novel—something on the scale of Tolstoy's
War and Peace. For Whom the Bell Tolls turned out to be a personal triumph for Hemingway. It sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and received universal praise from critics. It has remained one of his most highly regarded novels.
The novel concerns the mission of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer fighting for the democratic Republic forces during the Spanish Civil War. His assignment is to blow up a bridge on the Segovian Front to support a Republican offensive. During the course of the four-day period covered by the novel, Robert meets and falls in love with Maria, a beautiful nineteen-year-old refugee. Hemingway uses this story to examine questions of duty and love. The novel also takes on the questions of sacrifice and obligation, what it means to love a country, and what it means to love someone in a time of war.
Plot Summary
Chapter 1
Robert Jordan, an American mercenary fighting for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, carries two packs of dynamite through wooded mountain country.
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