Date of Award

2000

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Colby Access Only)

Department

Colby College. English Dept.

Advisor(s)

Phyllis Mannocchi

Abstract

In this thesis, I hope to explore why two major writers of the twentieth-century, Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, were drawn to the often forgotten, yet enormously significant, Spanish Civil War. In addition, I aim to discuss what both men did while in Spain and analyze how each, after returning to their respective countries, sought to express their personal vision of what they had seen and felt. These two literary figures, with their large and imposing presence, must have appeared quite similar to the average Spaniard and yet, the manner in which they viewed the world was, in many ways, radically different. The common conception of historians and literary experts continues to be that while Hemingway was an apolitical writer whose concern was primarily for the struggle of the individual to live in the modern world, Orwell was an entirely political writer whose works focused on creating social change for a more just society. One of my main objectives for this thesis will be to place both of these authors' paramount works on the Spanish war (Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls) next to each other and explore how the respective visions expressed in each both reinforce and complicate the aforementioned paradigm.

Comments

Full-text access is restricted to Colby College.

Keywords

Spain, radicalism, experiences, propaganda

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