Los girasoles ciegos

El tema de memoria es integral a los cuentos de Los girasoles ciegos, especialmente con la manera en que escribió Méndez. ¿Por qué puso tanto énfasis en los supuestos ‘fuentes’ de la historia cuando sabemos que es una obra de ficción? ¿Estaba tratando de restablecer una memoria perdida de la Guerra Civil? Quizás Méndez los escribió así para crear una apariencia de certeza, para hacernos creer que estos cuentos son de personas reales.

También los principios e ideales de los personajes tienen un papel significativa en este libro. El capitán Alegría eligió rendirse a los republicanos el mismo día que los fascistas ganaron la guerra. Aparentemente creó que hay más honor en ser un vencido que en ser un víctor. Ésto demuestra un problema que afecta a muchos de los personajes de los libros que hemos leído en este curso: el triunfo de los principios contra la racionalidad. Sería en el interés del capitán quedarse con los fascistas y disfrutar de la victoria contra los republicanos, pero sus morales dictan que es más glorioso ser un vencido, que hay más honor en una derrota que una victoria.

En una confidencia inoportuna que días más tarde utilizaría el fiscal militar para pedir su muerte con ignominia, Alegría confesó a un suboficial intachable que los defensores de la República hubieran humillado mas al ejercito de Franco rindiéndose el primer día de la guerra que resistiendo tenazmente, porque cada muerto de esa guerra, fuera del bando que fuera, había servido solo para glorificar al que mataba. Sin muertos, dijo, no habría gloria, y sin gloria, solo habría derrotados (p. 15).

Hemos visto este tipo de justificación irracional también en Malraux y Hemingway. Malraux tiene los republicanos luchando valientemente pero sin esperanza contra un enemigo con la clara ventaja de la tecnología avanzada. Hemingway tiene Robert Jordan persiguiendo su objetivo de destruir el puente sin pensar, como Pablo, en las consecuencias después de hacerlo. En todas situaciones los protagonistas hacen lo que dictan sus ideales en vez de lo racional. Es un aspecto único de la Guerra Civil española que había tanta dedicación fuerte a los principios y la ideología en la cara de adversidades insuperables.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls centers around an American dynamiter with the International Brigades who is sent on a mission to destroy a bridge and prevent the fascist advance.  This book certainly seems to be the most conventional war novel that we have read in this course.  There is a clear protagonist, a stated objective, and a love story; all rather conventional literary tropes that are not as prominent in the other novels we’ve read.  The story only takes place within a few days, which provides a clear timeline for the reader to follow what’s taking place.

I agree with Mauricio’s assessment in class about how Hemingway may have just been trying to write a book that would sell well.  One that reads easily, is relatively uncontroversial, and has a bit of something for everyone.  The romance between Robert Jordan and Maria is probably the most blatant example of this.  I share some of the skepticism towards their relationship; mostly in how they fell absolutely in love with each other after only a couple nights of smiling at each other.  I understand the nature of the war and that they may have only a few days to live, but the romance does seem a little far-fetched.  Similarly, there is little discussion of the politics surrounding the conflict, except for some discussion of how Robert Jordan ultimately takes his orders from the Communist party.  Perhaps Hemingway didn’t think it necessary, as he was ultimately writing a romantic war novel and probably wished not to scare people away with the complexities of the political situation of the time.

The symbolic purpose of the relationship is more clear though, especially considering the epigraph at the beginning of the book.  Maria could represent the Spain that needs to be rescued from the brutality and depravity of fascism, and Robert Jordan feels a responsibility to play his part, for if fascism takes over Spain it could easily spread elsewhere.  “He fought now in this war because it had started in a country that he loved and he believed in the Republic and that if it were destroyed life would be unbearable for all those people who believed in it” (p. 163).  Thus we see a part of Robert Jordan’s rationalization for taking part in the war as going along with John Donne’s quotation: ” . . . any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; . . .”  He feels morally obligated to fight the fascists for if he didn’t he would bear responsibility for not doing enough to prevent their rise.

 

Homage to Catalonia

Having read a few of Orwell’s other books (Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London, and Burmese Days) I’m quite familiar with his writing style, which has a very matter-of-fact way of explaining and analyzing situations.  There seems to be a deep sense of pessimism and disappointment with human nature throughout his works, from his account of the conditions in the trenches along the Aragon front, his experience in poverty recounted in Down and Out, or his chilling depiction of colonialism in Burmese Days.  Disillusionment seems to be a common theme; the loss of one’s ideals in the face of a reality to which they don’t conform.

After being swept up by the revolutionary fervor that had overtaken Barcelona and joining a Marxist militia, he sees the egalitarian principles by which the war was conducted on the Republican side slowly eroded away by sectarian in-fighting and propaganda.  The experience seems to have dispelled any romantic notions he may have held about communism (or at least the “official” communism promoted by the Soviets) and hardened his resolve as an opponent of totalitarianism (a role he would continue when writing Animal Farm and 1984).

Perhaps the pessimism expressed throughout Orwell’s work results from the era in which he lived, one in which war and economic hardship were prevalent for decades in a row. One can trace the formation of his political and social views throughout his books, and Homage to Catalonia could possibly be seen as a turning point in his political education. The point where rosy ideals about social equality are brought face-to-face with the tangible threat posed by fascism and Stalinism.  Indeed, his account of the conflict provides us a glance into the ideological divisions and partisan conflicts that engulfed not just Spain but all of Europe at the time.

In response to the question of what type of book this is, I think it combines elements of a historical novel with those of an autobiography.  Personable, anecdotal accounts of events as they happened to him, as well as an informative overview as to the larger political developments surrounding those events, combine to create a work of literature that not only draws the reader into a story of wartime struggle but is a critical account of the political climate of the time.  Perhaps its difficulty in being neatly categorized reflects its strengths in providing both an entertaining account of the war while also maintaining a journalistic duty to report the facts as they were witnessed.

Reflecting on our discussion . . .

Our discussion last week centered around two broad questions: What are they fighting for? and why did Malraux choose to write this book?  There are certainly many answers to these questions and our discussion covered many related topics.  The passage on pg. 263-267, in which Manuel had to keep the men from taking a train to Madrid with no one to operate it, provided considerable material to help ponder these questions: the Republicans’ clear technological disadvantage, their lack of organization or unity, and the shortage of necessary supplies all paint a dim picture.  Yet the revolutionary fervor that animates everyone against the common foe of fascism gives them a somewhat misplaced sense of hope that persists throughout the novel.

We also touched upon the great diversity of the men fighting the fascists: Italians, Germans, Algerians, Poles, etc. What exactly was it that motivated them to leave their homelands and fight in another country’s civil war?  Were they so committed to their ideologies that they jumped at the chance to fight for their cause alongside their comrades? Perhaps the sense of duty that brought them there in the first place was what kept them going even when their prospects were clearly grim.

Days of Hope

What occurs to me when reading Days of Hope is the amount of variation in ideologies between the different characters. The dialogue hints at a sense of unity among the various Republican factions insofar as the struggle against Franco is concerned, but also reveals deep gulfs between how they would ideally like society to be organized. The different factions of communists, anarchists, and everyone else opposed to fascism mostly all held genuinely left-wing, egalitarian ideals but their disunity and lack of a clear chain of command were what doomed them from the start, notwithstanding their clear technological disadvantages.

There’s a lot at play in this book and it feels like as one reads it the sense of despair and hopelessness that engulfs the characters only becomes more apparent. It’s somewhat ironic considering the title of the novel. The militias are ill-equipped to take on a well-trained and supplied army that has the support of two fascist states with a group of rag-tag peasants and laborers operating shoddy rifles that easily jam. It dawns upon the characters that if they truly want to win this war they’ll have to compromise their egalitarian and anti-fascist beliefs. But most of all they’ll need more technology that they simply don’t have access to: more planes, machine guns, and bombs.

Malraux’s emphasis on the technological aspects of warfare are what put the Republican’s situation into perspective. It all comes down to logistics: who has more machine guns? Who controls the train station? How many men do they have? This focus on technology, and the destruction it can cause, adds to the sense of hopelessness one feels throughout the book. It also helps one see how the Spanish Civil War was a sort of precursor to World War II. Though Malraux couldn’t have been intentionally foreshadowing (as the book was published before the end of the Civil War), he certainly helped set the mood for what was to come to Europe as a whole. The book helps one understand the political and ideological fervor with which people were acting. The conflict brought people from all over, inspired by their strongly-held beliefs, to fight for or against fascism in what they saw to be a global struggle. Spain was just one arena in which it would be fought, and it would overtake the rest of Europe and much of the rest of the world in the following decade.

I also want to make a note about the idea raised in class yesterday regarding the novel as possible pro-Republican propaganda. Later in life, Malraux was the French Minister of Information and then Minister of Cultural Affairs under Charles de Gaulle, which seem to me like good positions for a propagandist. The idea that Malraux wrote this and emphasized the clear technological disparity between the two sides to try to persuade the French government to arm the Republicans seems plausible to me.

Réquiem por un campesino español

Lo que me parece interesante sobre Réquiem por un campesino español es el tono de los pensamientos de mosén Millán. Su relación con Paco el del Molino desde nacimiento hasta muerte le da emociones mezclados de tristeza, felicidad y de culpa. Sus recuerdos nos ofrecemos una idea de la personalidad y el papel de Paco en la aldea y de las personas diferentes que afectan su vida.

La culpa y tristeza que siente mosén Millán parece auténtica porque él está atrapado entre su relación con la aldea y su posición como cura en la iglesia, que simpatizaba con los nacionalistas. Sus pensamientos cuestionan lo que estaban sucediendo alrededor de él y cómo la gente debe responder al conflicto. Pero su propio actitud es bastante pasivo hasta la violencia y la miseria. Sus recuerdos muestran una sociedad más compleja que una solo de los ricos y los pobres, una sociedad de sentimientos mezclados y a veces contradictorios. Sin embargo, podemos ver el actitud de mosén Millán hasta la pobreza y la guerra. “Cuando Dios permite la pobreza y el dolor -dijo- es por algo” (p. 16). Él acepta el mundo como es y no intenta cambiarlo u ayudarlo.

Sender intentó de recrear el incertidumbre y la ansiedad que sentía España durante este periodo, enfocado en las tragedias personales, los valores variados entre clase y profesión y la culpa de la iglesia. La tensión entre Paco y mosén Millán refleja la tensión entre los jóvenes reformistas que deseaban reorganizar la sociedad para ser más justa, y las élites que veían los cambios como una amenaza o la pobreza como parte de un plan divino. El deseo de Paco de ayudar y encontrar soluciones a las problemas de la gente contrasta con el actitud pasivo de mosén Millán, y esto es simbólico de las divisiones sociales, culturales, ideológicas y generacionales dentro de la sociedad española. Réquiem por un campesino español muestra un microcosmo de esta sociedad en los recuerdos del cura y toda la tensión social sentida por todos antes de la guerra. El libro me parece sobre todo una crítica de la iglesia y su cooperación con los nacionalistas contra los intereses del pueblo durante la guerra. La culpa que siente mosén Millán sobre la muerte de Paco es la culpa de la iglesia por apoyar a Franco.

Hola

Me llamo Kyle y estoy en mi cuarto año en UBC. Estoy estudiando para un bachillerato de estudios interdisciplinarios en economía y español. Soy de Seattle, WA en los Estados Unidos y me gusta tocar la guitarra, esquiar e ir a conciertos. Me interesa le historia de la guerra civil española y espero que este curso me fascina.