Prompt: The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. “The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events — a marriage or a last minute rescue from death — but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death.” Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. in a well-written essay, identify the “spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation” evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
In this novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, the author provides a happy ending for everyone’s pleasure. Ernest Hemingway wrote the story to a fate that allowed Robert Jordan, the main character, to have a spiritual reassessment in the closing stages of the novel.
In the end of the story, Robert Jordan is riding a horse who receives a bullet with ill intentions. The horse collapses, and in the storm of events, Robert Jordan’s leg is broken. The group he is stationed cannot be held back. With their best interests at mind, Jordan, as well as the rest of the crew, acknowledges he must be left behind. So, he says goodbye to his recently discovered lover, Maria, and stays behind. He’s sitting on the ground, and feels the nature around him. He feels the ground and the trees, the pine needles. He knows he can survive long enough to kill the opposition as they cross the hill to allow his guerilla warfare team to gain a little ground in the chase of their lives.
This guerilla warfare team is a crew of soldiers who fight for the Communist regime and their mission was to destroy a bridge. Experiencing tension and difficulties in the process, their mission was accomplished and it was time to escape.
Now, at the beginning of the novel, a quote in the epigraph set up a theme for the rest of the story. The quote said: “No man is an island, entire of itself.” This powerful quote was followed by the thought of church bells ringing upon the death of man. Basically, it was saying that the church bells should toll for all men, not just those of imaginary importance over others. All men are equal. Anyway, in the final scenes of the novel as Jordan has a spiritual epiphany that he is one with the land and the people, he feels whole. He feels attached to the others and as a final gift to his fellow partners of humanity; he protects them with a final assault on the enemy as they reach the hill. Jordan is no longer an island, he has become spiritually apart of everyone else and everything else.
In the end, even though he lays to his death, Jordan experiences self-discovery that gives everyone a strong sense of joy. It was a happy ending that gives everyone who experienced the novel something to ponder. For whom does the bell toll?
For Whom The Bell Tolls 