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Chapter 5
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
Robert Jordan sits inside the cave listening to Pablo’s wife, who is washing dishes while Maria dries them. Pablo’s wife says that it is strange that El Sordo hasn’t come to the camp yet, and that they will have to visit him tomorrow. Maria asks if she can come, and Pablo’s wife, who Maria calls Pilar, agrees. “Isn’t she pretty?” she asks Jordan, who agrees. Maria fills his glass with wine, saying that the wine will make her seem even better. Jordan says that she already seems beautiful and more, and that she seems intelligent, too. Pilar calls him “Don Roberto” as a joke, and he insists that she call him “camarada,” or comrade. She teases him, saying that he is very “religious” about his politics.
In this scene, Robert Jordan continues to flirt with Maria, demonstrating his growing attraction to her, based mainly on her physical appearance: her beauty seems to provide him with comfort in the midst of the ugliness and brutality of war.
Themes
Maria says that Robert Jordan is a Communist and that she is an anti-fascist, since her father was a Republican. Jordan says that his father and grandfather were Republicans, too. Pilar asks if they were shot for their political beliefs, and Maria responds that in the United States, they don’t shoot you for being a Republican. Jordan reveals that his father shot himself “to avoid being tortured,” and Maria, tearing up, says that her father could not find a weapon to do the same. She says that she and Robert Jordan are the same, and Jordan looks into her “hungry and young and wanting” eyes.
Maria and Robert Jordan’s conversation reveals that their respective backgrounds are not so different: though Spanish and American, respectively, both have experienced familial trauma, and both are the product of their families’ strong political beliefs.
Themes
Literary Devices
Jordan runs his hand over the top of Maria’s head and feels his throat “swelling.” She smiles at him and asks him to do it again. Pilar asks whether she is expected “not to be moved” by the display. Maria asks if Robert Jordan wants another cup of wine, and Pilar asks him where he plans to sleep. He says he will sleep outside in his sleeping robe, and he asks Maria to leave him alone with Pilar for a moment.
Robert Jordan is clearly moved by the connections he is forging with Maria, whose life now seems less distinct from his own—a theme that will recur throughout the novel, as Jordan and Maria’s lives become more intertwined, leading them to think of themselves not as two individuals, but as “one.”
Themes
Jordan tells Pilar what Rafael has said about Pablo, and Pilar says that it is not necessary to kill Pablo, since he is no longer dangerous. Maria returns and strokes her head under Jordan’s hand, smiling at him again. Jordan goes outside to go to sleep.
Like Robert Jordan, Pilar finds it difficult to make up her mind about Pablo, who she has already referred to as dangerous, cowardly, and untrustworthy, but now finds unthreatening. Pablo’s vacillation between allegiance to the group and selfishness makes it challenging for the other guerillas to understand his motives and character.
Themes
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