The Highlighting of Gender-Parity and Male Hectoring in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Abstract

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) is a Hemingway's masterpiece based on his own experiences of the Spanish Civil War. The novel tells the story of an anti-fascist Spanish group of guerillas which the American protagonist, Robert Jordan, joins in order to blow up a bridge. The only two women among the characters, Pilar and Maria, represent matching and also different views on female gender roles in the male-dominated environment. The present study employs the ideas of Sara Mills, the English scholar on Linguistic Feminism and draws a feminist analysis on gender roles and the use of sexist language in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). The article concludes that although Maria and Pilar stand on far extremes of femininity, both are challenged with the male preferential language and sexist pejoration.