Quicklet on Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls (CliffsNotes-like Summary, Analysis, and Commentary)

The quote from which For Whom the Bell Tolls takes its title, also supplies one of the main themes: “any mans death/diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde.” Any death hurts the larger human community because everyone is connected. This illustrated time and again throughout the novel, through the struggle to justify wartime acts to the recognition that enemies are not really that different.

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man/is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if/Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,/as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor/of thy friends or of thy owne were; any mans death/diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And/therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;/It tolls for thee.” – John Donne