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Rabbit at the Riverside: Names and Impossible Crossings in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls
- The Hemingway Review
- University of Idaho Department of English
- Volume 29, Number 1, Fall 2009
- pp. 134-139
- 10.1353/hem.0.0058
- Article
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For Whom the Bell Tolls expresses the idealistic fantasies of national peace and perfect love most succinctly in Jordan's controversial use of the nickname "rabbit" for Maria. As yet, there has been no critical discussion of how the word "Spain" resonates etymologically both with the name "Jordan" and the nickname "rabbit." Jordan's two names (Jordan and Inglés), Maria's names (Maria and "rabbit"), and the naming of Spain are deeply interconnected. By examining these names and their relationship, one sees that, for Jordan, Maria embodies the seamless integration, or bridging, of contradictory values. That she does so in a novel written across cultures only furthers the sense that the novel is replete with unbridgeable distances. Nevertheless, Jordan remains faithful to this fantasy of synthesis, and thus to Maria, until his dying breath.