THE SYMBOLS IN ERNEST HEMINGWAY’S FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Abstract

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel written by Ernest Hemingway. It was published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attaches to a republican guerilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of bombs, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.

Symbols are words that suggest much more than they mean on the surface and are necessary to help us express some ideas. Then, a symbol is a word or phrase or image that stands for large ideas. Not only are we capable of forming concepts for which there are no physical object to point to, but it is also possible for us to have moods, feeling for which we do not even have practice words. That is where symbols come in. Therefore, it is very interesting to analyze the topic of the Symbols in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell tolls. This thesis wants to discuss the bridge as connector, the bridge as the symbol of rebellion, the bridge as the symbol of power, Pablo as a Fox, Maria and Republican as Rabbit. The approach to use in this discussion is symbolism approach by Carpenter. It is used to know the meaning of the symbols. The research methodology used in this thesis is inductive method. It analyzes the specific actions, events, or attitudes in the novel related to the problem discussed then draws conclusion. The results of the discussions show that firstly to describe the symbol of a rabbit, secondly is to describe the symbol of a fox and thirdly is to describe the symbol of the bridge. The analysis of this thesis proves that everything is neutral. However, every person has different meaning of a symbol. Some people think that a thing is not important for them but others think that it is very important for their life. For the Fascist, the bridge has an important thing and as the symbol of power, while for the Republican, bridge is the symbol of rebellion and as an important thing for their future.