Hemingway and The Snows of Kilimanjaro

From a broader perspective, The Snows of Kilimanjaro can be viewed as an example of an author of the “Lost Generation” and an author totally disenchanted with life following harrowing experiences in the world wars and the war in Spain which led to confront the moral and philosophy. It is said that Hemingway experienced a moral vacuum when he alienated himself from the Church.

In this week’s column, we examine Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro and how the author, Hemingway, emerges out of the protagonist Harry, the writer?

The critics of the day viewed The Snows of Kilimanjaro as reflections of Hemingway’s personal anxieties about his existence as a writer and his life in general. Once, Hemingway made a remark at Green Hills, that “politics, women, drink, money and ambition” damage American writer. The story reflects his fears that Hemingway’s acquaintance with the rich might harm his integrity as a writer and the author also expressed his fears that he might not be able to finish his work before death.

From a broader perspective, The Snows of Kilimanjaro can be viewed as an example of an author of the “Lost Generation” and an author totally disenchanted with life following harrowing experiences in the world wars and the war in Spain which led to confront the moral and philosophy. It is said that Hemingway experienced a moral vacuum when he alienated himself from the Church. The then Church was closely linked with Franco in Spain and which gave Hemingway sufficient ground to distance himself from the Church. This moral quandary resulted in Hemingway discovering his own code of human conduct: a mishmash of hedonism and sentimental humanism.

Procrastination

The story commences with the protagonist, Harry, the writer, with his wife Helen are stranded on a safari in Africa. As the bearing burned out on their truck immobilising it, Harry talks about the gangrene that has terribly infected his leg and he did not apply iodine after he scratched it. While they are waiting for a rescue plane from Nairobi that Harry knows would arrive on time, Harry spends time, drinking and insulting Helen. He reflects upon his life; he realises that he wasted his talents through procrastination and indulged in luxurious life offered to him through a marriage to a wealthy woman that he does not love. It is in a series of flashbacks that Harry recalls the mountains of Bulgaria and Constantinople and his agonising feelings of being alone in Paris.

Harry recalls his life which also reflects Hemingway’s concerns; “They were snow-bound a week in the Madlenerhaus that time in the blizzard playing cards in the smoke by the lantern light and the stakes were higher all the time as Herr Lent lost more. Finally he lost it all. Everything, the Skischule money and all the season’s profit and then his capital. He could see him with his long nose, picking up the cards and then opening, Sans Voir.There was always gambling then. When there was no snow you gambled and when there was too much you gambled. He thought of all the time in his life he had spent gambling.

Bright Christmas

But he had never written a line of that, nor of that cold, bright Christmas day with the mountains showing across the plain that Barker had flown across the lines to bomb the Austrian officers’ leave train, machine-gunning them as they scattered and ran. He remembered Barker afterwards coming into the mess and starting to tell about it. And how quiet it got and then somebody saying. He thought about alone in Constantinople that time, having quarrelled in Paris before he had gone out. When he had failed to kill his loneliness, it only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it ...

He remembered the good times with them all, and the quarrels. They always picked the finest places to have the quarrels. And why had they always quarrelled when he was feeling best? He had never written any of that because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.”

What is noteworthy is how skilfully Hemingway reflects upon life through a series of carefully-knitted flash-backs. His moral quandary is amply manifested through the protagonist Harry. In terms of the structure, Hemingway has divided the story into six sections with each has a flashback that appeared in Italics juxtaposing the bleak and harrowing present with the past. It seems that the past is more promising that the present. The flashbacks which make the backbone of the story are about the erosion of values, lost love, loose-sex, drinking, revenge and war. They also reflect about the author’s constant worry about his unfinished business.

Imagery

The story ends with Harry’s spirit glorious as his spirit released and travels to the summit of Kilimanjaro where the square top is “wide as all the world”. The author uses the imagery of bright and shining snows to suggest the triumph of Harry’s spirit. Apart from its enduring appeal, The Snows of Kilimanjaro remains as one of the best short stories which brilliantly captures the mind-set of a dying man. The protagonist, the writer, through a series of flashbacks virtually revisits his life and worries about his unfinished business. The Snows of Kilimanjaro questions the very notion of morality and code of human conduct.