Owasa

Wolves in the novel are at once animals hunted for their hides and a comparison through which characters weigh the ethics of killing. Anselmo’s memories of hunting wolves belong to a former life of pride and pleasure; his rejection of pleasure in killing people makes the contrast explicit. In wartime, the language of wolf and fox also becomes a way to argue over courage and survival, while horses show how animals remain caught in the practical demands of combat.

Hunting and remembered life

Anselmo remembers hunting wolves in winter, when their hides had a place in the house he once had. He describes four wolf hides worn down from being stepped on, alongside boar tusks, ibex horns, and a stuffed eagle. These objects preserved the memory of encounters with animals and gave him pleasure to contemplate. Hunting was part of a life rooted in a village and its surrounding landscape, rather than an abstract idea about violence.

The bear’s paw nailed to the village church door sharpens the distinction Anselmo makes between hunting and killing a person. Seeing the paw recalled his encounter with the bear and gave him pride; he says that nothing good remains from killing a man, who is a man like himself. Robert Jordan observes that a man’s paw cannot be displayed in the same way, and Anselmo agrees that such treatment would be barbarous. The comparison brings human and animal bodies close without erasing the moral difference Anselmo insists upon.

The ethics of killing

Anselmo says he has killed several people and will do so again when war requires it, but he does not regard the act as pleasurable or morally harmless. He considers killing a man a sin, even when the person is a Fascist whom the group must kill. He rejects the idea that a supposed kinship between humans and animals makes the two kinds of killing equivalent. If he survives, he hopes to live without harming anyone, as if a future life of restraint might make forgiveness possible.

That position differs from Robert Jordan’s more instrumental account. Jordan says he does not like killing animals, but accepts killing people when it is necessary for the cause. Anselmo, by contrast, resists treating necessity as a moral eraser. His remembered wolf hunts and his present participation in war therefore do not form a simple opposition between peaceful past and violent present: the past contains killing, but the meaning and lasting burden of killing a person are different.

Wolf and fox as political language

The animals also enter a dispute about how the guerrillas can survive. Pablo argues that he must act according to what can truly be done: because he lives and operates beyond Segovia, making a disturbance in the area could bring pursuit and drive the group from the mountains. He calls this the principle of the fox, a strategy of restraint in order to remain there. Anselmo bitterly counters that the group needs the wolf instead. Pablo replies that he is more wolf than Anselmo, and Robert Jordan expects him to take up the sack.

The exchange turns animal names into competing descriptions of wartime conduct. Fox stands for caution shaped by the danger of being hunted out; wolf answers with the demand for force when the cause requires action. Neither image cancels the material problem at their center: the group’s ability to remain in the mountains depends on avoiding actions that expose it, yet the war also demands attacks. The language makes their disagreement over tactics vivid without settling it into a simple contrast between cowardice and courage.

Animals in the machinery of war

Animals are not only emblems in human arguments; they are also exposed to the immediate costs of military action. During the fighting on the hilltop, El Sordo uses his wounded horse’s body to plug a gap between rocks and fire his automatic rifle over it. The scene places the animal’s suffering inside a tactical decision made under pressure, where a horse is both a living creature and a resource on which survival depends. The account of the encounter does not turn the horse into a mere symbol: its condition and the role its body plays are concrete parts of the action.

Elsewhere, Maria’s effort to stay with the horses as firing and bombs sound nearby shows another consequence of that dependence. She tries to calm a large white-faced bay stallion, but her own agitation makes the horse nervous; as she walks among the animals, patting and gentling them, they grow more unsettled. The episode gives the horses their own reactions to danger even as the humans’ attention is fixed on the battle and on the people at risk. Together, these scenes set the remembered pleasure of hunting against a wartime world in which animals are hunted, frightened, worked, and drawn into combat, while Anselmo’s moral distinction remains unresolved but deeply felt.