For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Study of Psychology :: essays research papers

When some think of wars, the first thought that comes to mind is the land which was fought oer and which side won. They never consider the psychological side effect soldiers endure during war. For many, this is the only side they see so there is no exposure still through writers such as Ernest Hemingway. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway captivates the realism of war through his own eyes. Drawing from his own observation and experiences as an ambulance driver, Hemingway shows the psychological deadening of war through the destruction of human lives, uncommitted relationships, and lack of confidence.Hemingways novel is so true to his own that many consider For Whom the Bell Tolls an autobiographic piece of writing with different characters added in. These themes can be directly drawn from Hemingways own "first hand of experience of violence" (Reynolds 23) in every major(ip) war in his lifetime as an ambulance driver and journalist. Being that Hemingway had been to eve ry significant war in between domain of a function War I and World War II, Hemingway was no stranger to the cruelty of war and for this reason there is a strong influence of his own personal experiences with war. As Anselmo had lost many of his friends because of war, so did Ernest which had a dramatizing effect on him. Following his experiences, he had become shell-shocked. One of his most disturbing occurrences of war was when he "rode into the Fox Green welkin of Omaha Guerra 2Beach in a landing craft" (Reynolds 23). From the minute he stepped a foot on the "already bloody battle backcloth" (Reynolds 23), Ernest was exposed to the "high physical and horny costs of bodily wounds"(Reynolds 21) and paid the eternal price of this corrupting episode of hatred. Many women viewed him as "a philanderer who had no respect for women" (Reynolds 24) which can show the numbness of affection he acquired from war. Before he died, Hemingway had been married t o five different women, all of which lasted less than decennary years long. Many would suppose that he had a good heart but that all of his emotions had just been drained out of him by the sheer emotional strife of war. This numbness then turned into guilt. Looking to fix this depression, Hemingway was in and out of clinics the latter part of his life for "electroshock therapy" (Reynolds 21) but this last look for by his last wife was two late.