Ernest Hemingway's 'The Snows Of Kilimanjaro'

1345 Words3 Pages

Ernest Hemingway was a talented author and a tortured soul that modeled his character after his own personality and experiences. Some recurring themes in Hemingway’s work include a surly main male character that proves himself someway whilst coming to grips with the world. Hemmingway’s "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", a story that is rich with dialogue and symbolism, is no exception. In the story, Harry, the manipulative and selfish main character, is dying of gangrene and uses his last final moments to reflect on his life. Harry’s present situation symbolizes his physical and emotional death and subsequent emotional redemption, just as his flash backs to when he was a solider metaphorically outline the rise and fall of Harry’s character. These …show more content…

Unlike the vulture, the hyena represents mental demise. The hyena only visits the camp nightly, but only for brief periods of time. During one such visits Harry monologues “Because, just then, death had come and rested its head on the foot of the cot and he could smell its breath.” He then tells his wife that death can come in any form “Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull, he told her, “it can be two bicycle policeman, as easily, or be a bird, or it can have a wide snout like a hyena” (Hemingway 2219). By referring to the Hyena as “death” and telling his wife that “scythe and skull” aka the grim reaper can come in the form of anything, including a hyena, tells the reader that harry links the hyena with his rapidly approaching death. To clarify that that the Hyena represents emotional death as opposed to physical death, the hyena only appears as harry resignedly contemplates his loss. Harry tells his wife “The only thing I never lost was curiosity” (Hemingway2219), referring to his loss of talent and subsequent laziness that he believes struck him when he married his wife. It is then that the hyena lays its complete weight upon Harry, and Harry notices that the hyena no longer takes physical form, but merely “occupies space”. Harry is then unable to breath and the “hyena” only leaves as Harry is being taken inside the cot. The smothering, but otherwise benign presence of the hyena that only bothers harry mirrors the smothering disappointment Harry feels for his loss of talent and failures as a

Open Document