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Chapter 39
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in For Whom the Bell Tolls, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love in War
Cultural Connections
Violence, Cowardice, and Death
The Eternality of the Present
Summary
Analysis
Meanwhile, Andrés is following the soldier to the battalion headquarters, where he meets the battalion commander, a barber before the movement, who is “filled with enthusiasm on hearing the account of [Andrés’s] mission.” The commander’s name is Gomez, and he curses the soldier for his “stupidity,” telling Andrés that he has always wanted to be a guerrillero (a guerilla) like him. Gomez takes Andrés to the brigade headquarters and into a big room with walls covered in maps. Gomez asks to see the Lieutenant-Colonel, but the officer at the desk says that he is asleep, and that he knows of no General Golz. Gomez turns his 9mm pistol on the officer and tells him to wake up the Lieutenant-Colonel.
Gomez is kind to Andrés, and, more importantly, he trusts Andrés, perceiving him not as a threat (as the anarchists did) but as an important messenger. Gomez represents what Hemingway sees as the uncorrupted wing of the Republican party, a brave force of justice—confirming that there are good Republicans in charge, though the group seems divided and weakened as a whole.
Themes
Gomez tells the officer that the army is “rotten with such as thee,” “professionals,” and that the Republicans are caught between “the ignorant” and “the cynical”: they will have to “educate the one” and “eliminate the other.” Gomez’s eyes shine with the “moistness that rage and hatred can bring,” but he stores it all away “for some time in the future.” The Lieutenant-Colonel Miranda enters: he has been in the army all his life and has lost “the love of his wife” in Madrid while he was “losing his digestion in Morocco.” He only became a Republican when he found that he could not divorce his wife, and his only goal is to finish the war with the same military rank. He feels healthier than he has ever been in the war, since he is able to have whiskey in the evening, and his twenty-three-year-old mistress is having a baby.
The Lieutenant-Colonel Miranda is an example of a Republican who does not truly believe in the cause that he is fighting for: rather, it is convenient for him to be a Republican, and he has not been affected by the war in the same way that the guerilla fighters, peasants, and other disenfranchised or persecuted individuals have been. Hemingway uses Miranda as another example of the corruption and ineffectuality of the Republicans.
Themes
Miranda asks Gomez what brings him to the headquarters, and Gomez shows him Andrés’s papers and the dispatch from Robert Jordan. Miranda asks Andrés what the closest point to General Golz’s headquarters is, and Andrés tells him that it is Navacerrada. Miranda tells Gomez to take him there on his motorcycle, and he gives him a “strong” Salvoconducto, a “safe conduct” pass. After they leave, Miranda pours himself a drink and looks at the big map on his wall; he says that he is glad that “it is Golz” and not him.
Though Miranda sends Andrés and Gomez on to Golz without objection, it is clear that he does not strongly support the war: he is glad that it is Golz who will have to end the offensive, not him, since he does not want to be involved in the war. Unlike Golz and Jordan, who believe in courage, following orders, and the obligations of wartime duty, Miranda is not at all devoted to the Republican cause.
Themes
