Literary Identity in Hemingway's the Snows of Kilimanjaro - Research Paper Example

Literary Identity in Hemingway's the Snows of Kilimanjaro The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Snows) is said to be based on Ernest Hemingway's life, because like Harry, his literary stardom has brought material excesses too. This story is both praised and parodied for containing fragmented stories that revolutionized narrative techniques and the short story genre (Harding 21). Snows is about Harry, whose steps toward death force him to reflect on his life and what he gave up, because he is not prepared to fight for his dreams. This essay analyzes five elements in Snows and their relationship with the theme of literary self's death. Hemingway uses the plot, setting, symbolism, Harry's character, and his relationship with Helen to describe how and why a literary self dies. The plot of The Snows of Kilimanjaro shows that Harry's literary identity dies, because he killed it through the wrong choices he made in life. The exposition starts with an epigraph, where a leopard has died frozen in its summit. This epigraph embodies the persona of success at its final stage. The story proceeds to Harry's description of his leg and life: “The marvelous thing is that it's painless...That's how you know when it starts” (Hemingway). By saying this, he underlines that there is a “rot in his soul” (Bloom 69). The development to the complication of the plot describes how drinking, laziness, and womanizing kill Harry's writing identity. The complication demonstrates his cruelty toward Helen. His cruelty aims to kill his self-blame. By emphasizing on Helen, he rejects blaming his part in murdering his fate. The plot shows the struggle of man against himself. Harry remembers the narratives of his life and yet: “...he had never written a word of that” (Hemingway). He should have been a writer, but he is too lazy to write. The underlying concern of laziness is his high expectations: “He had destroyed his talent by not using it... by pride and by prejudice” (Hemingway). The climax occurs when Harry dies and see Death as a “wide snout like a hyena” (Hemingway). The hyena laughs at him, as it figuratively consumes him with his wide snout. Harry is like a large mass with no essence and he will fit right into its snout. The conclusion indicates what the epigraph means. The leopard stands for people who reach for their dreams and died doing so; the opposite of Harry who fails the task of climbing the mountain of his dream. The setting depicts the difference between developing the literary self and killing it. Africa bustles with life and death. One of the images of life is: “a herd of zebra, white against the green of the bush” (Hemingway). This herd moves toward its life; it symbolizes the movement toward the literary self. The distance from this image, nevertheless, suggests that Harry only sees himself as a writer, but does nothing to achieve it. When he reaches his dying moments, he sees a game of animals: “there was a new water that he had never known of” (Hemingway). The water is life, his life as a writer that he has never known. He does not know it, because he did not write at all. In his memories, someone calls Baker a “bloody murderous bastard” (Hemingway), and this phrase can also be used to describe Harry. He knows he can kill his literary identity with a materialistic lifestyle. To live with physical needs will only rot the soul, the core of his writing self, and yet Harry chooses them over a life of writing. Symbols of death support the theme of literary identity's death. The vultures and the hyenas are death symbols. Harry describes the vultures as “quick-moving shadows” (Hemingway), which allude to Death's shadows. The vultures are like Death that can come so suddenly and unexpectedly. The hyenas are also signifiers of death for Harry. Harry observes that a hyena crosses over around the hill every night. He fumes and says: “That bastard crosses there every night...Every night for two weeks” (Hemingway). He is angry because he does not want to die yet. He goes to Africa to “work the fat off his soul” (Hemingway). He believes that Africa can help him revive his writing self. The hyena's damning presence, however, foreshadows that Africa will, instead of letting him live in a different sense, become his deathbed. He tells Helen that death is not “a scythe and a skull...It can be two bicycle policemen as easily, or be a bird. Or it can have a wide snout like a hyena” (Hemingway). Baker stresses that “a scythe and a skull” are “ancient” symbols, but “do not fit the pattern of Harry's death and are therefore rejected in favor of the foul and obscene creatures which have now come to dominate Harry's imagination” (76). Hemingway seeks to embody death as “a sudden, evil-smelling emptiness,” because that is what happens to people who do not live to follow their dreams. When they die, they will feel and smell the emptiness of their lives. Snows demonstrates Harry's character, who acts against his dreams and kills his writing identity in the process. His vain and materialistic life leads to his literary self's death: “...each day of not writing, of comfort...dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all” (Hemingway). His comforts take all his time and energy, or so he thinks. In reality, he himself is to be blamed, because he chooses the road away from who he is and who he can be. Harry also realizes that he is a liar, especially to women. Ironically, he lies to himself the most. The more he says he loves them, the less he loves himself. Hemingway further describes the stubbornness of Harry. He is not willing to accept his fate: “ If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it” (Hemingway). He lies that he could have not been a great writer. He focuses on what he did not have: “he would not have to fail at trying to write … either” (Hemingway). Indeed, what he does not do contains the theme of what he should have done. One article calls these facts as “counterfactuals” (Harding 21). They are the might-have-been that kill Harry's dream of being a writer. When Harry looks back in his life, he thinks he has good material enough to write about it. His friends and associates also have stories that are quite interesting to tell. But these memories are futile, because Harry does not write about them. What he does not do has ironically become the defining force of his destiny; what is absent is what he should have done in order to live a fulfilling and happy life. Hemingway also illustrates Harry's relationship with Helen in a way that contributes to Harry's literary death. He feels that Helen is: “...this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent” (Hemingway). He marries women for money and Helen is the richest of them all. Because she is rich, he is more able to enjoy a comfortable life, the life that sucks the soul out of him. His life becomes a dream, where time does not stop. When Harry realizes that his time is up, he blames Helen and directs his anger at her. It manifests his own self-hate. Later, he appreciates Helen, because she is a good companion, except in what he wants to do, which is writing. Helen cannot even take dictations, for instance. This aspect of their relationship stresses that Harry also kills his literary identity by choosing a woman who is his unknowing accomplice. Snows shows the many ways a literary self can be killed. These numerous ways are, essentially, products of one's decisions. Harry, no matter how much he blames Helen, only has himself to blame. No one forces him to not write. Instead, he is the one who defers his writing and uses womanizing, drinking, sloth, and gambling as excuses. These alibis compose the web of lies that Harry keep up to shroud himself in innocence. At his deathbed, however, he cannot escape the truth. The leopard is better than he is; it dies climbing up. Harry dies and goes to hell. He goes to hell where he can only dream of writing forever. Works Cited Baker, Carlos. “Carlos Baker on Symbols in The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Ernest Hemingway (1999): 75-76. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center Database. Bloom, Harold. “Plot Summary of The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Ernest Hemingway (1999): 69-72. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center Database . Harding, Jennifer Riddle. “'He Had Never Written a Word of That': Regret and Counterfactuals in Hemingway's 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'.” Hemingway Review 30.2 (2011): 21-35. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center Database. Hemingway, Ernest. The Snows of Kilimanjaro. 1938. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. . Read More