The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemmingway is about the African savanna where a man and a woman are talking

to each other and the mans leg is rotting away from him. The woman is trying to make him more comfortable and make him believe that he will survive, but he seems to be enjoying the black humor of the vultures who are waiting for him to die. As she speaks to him, his resentment of her money and her upbringing comes out in his comments. He has flashbacks, one is from when he remembers being in World War I, and he thinks about the scenes in numerous winters. As that flashback finishes, Harry returns to the present and argues with the woman before falling asleep. When he wakes up, the woman has been out to shoot an animal for them to eat and he thinks about her, why he married her, and why he does not like her. In his second flashback, he thinks about his time in Paris and Constantinople, but all of his memories are colored by memories of the war. When he returns to consciousness, she convinces him to drink some broth and he stops thinking so harshly of her before slipping into a third flashback. In his final flashback, he thinks again about the war, and this time its about a man he saw die, before waking from his flashback and talking to the woman more. The story ends with the woman waking up because he has been making noise for hours and he finally stopped whimpering and has begun making another sound. As she looks over at Harry, she realizes that he has died. Harry is a man who feels as though he has wasted his life and uses his safari to Kilimanjaro as an attempt to make up for his failures. Both physically and morally shattered, he becomes infected by the slightest scratch and while he is dying he begins to reminisce about all of the events in his life that he wishes he would have had the courage to write about. While most people would probably reflect on the things they wish they could have changed, Harry seems to be primarily consumed with his recent inability to describe them on paper. His feelings of regret are not so much based on the choices he has made but rather on his incompetence in writing about them. One of the most notable aspects of The Snows of Kilimanjaro is the way in which Harry views death. Harrys experience with dying is neither mystical nor theological. It does not culminate with an angel or a demon spiriting him away into the afterlife. Hemingway soaks Harrys suffering with realism, using beautifully descriptive prose to illuminate the characters perceptions. What may initially seem to be simply a mundane catalog of a dying mans thoughts is actually a surprisingly intriguing representation of both spiritual and physical death. Harrys attitude towards life and death are demonstrated in the reading because it make the reader want to question many things like whether the mans intentions are as important as his actual deeds. By the end of the story, Harry feels that merely having had the intention to fulfill his goals is sufficient reason to feel pride. He feels he has done everything possible to redeem himself and to make his soul worthy of ascending into heaven upon his death. He has even sacrificed true love to be with a woman he feels very little for, which he views as a pure and unselfish act. He feels he is doing his wife a favor by staying with her, while in truth he is only depriving them both of a truly fulfilling existence. Harry appears to be quite prone to self-sacrifice in that he also saw fit to give up his own morphine to help another. This heroic and final deed, in his mind, would catapult him into eternal paradise. The question remains in the mind of the reader, however, as to whether

or not Harrys actions, though well intended, could necessarily be considered holy. Regardless, Harry has finally achieved some sort of peace with himself. Hemingways use of description and symbolism not only serve to enhance the depth of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, but they provide the reader with amazing insight into the characters minds, hearts and souls.