ABSTRACT
In this chapter on For Whom the Bell Tolls, Pilar and Maria have been read as complex figures, bearers of the Hemingway code. Hemingway’s novel confronts sexuality and sexual orientation; Pilar emerges as a figure of ambiguous gender manifesting bisexuality, combining masculine massiveness and gentle femininity. Maria too emerges as a strong character instead of a docile and self-effacing sexual fantasy. Maria, raped, spoilt and traumatised by Fascists becomes an incarnation of Spain ravaged by the civil war of July 1936. Like Catherine Barkley, Maria becomes her own therapist. One forced sexual encounter had initiated trauma, another willing encounter with Jordan erases it.
