1、Unit 17 The Snows of KilimanjaroErnest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway(1899 1961),American novelist and short-story writer,awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely publicized life.H
2、is succinct and lucid prose style exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century.Hemingways Writing YearsuThe writing of books occupied Hemingway for most of the postwar years.He remained based in Paris,but he traveled widely for the skiing,bullfighting,fishing,and
3、hunting that by then had become part of his life and formed the background for much of his writing.His position as a master of short fiction had been advanced by Men Without Women in 1927 and thoroughly established with the stories in Winner Take Nothing in 1933.Among his finest stories are“The Kill
4、ers,”“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,”and“The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”At least in the public view,however,the novel A Farewell to Arms(1929)overshadowed such works.“The Hemingway Code”uHemingways characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.The main characters of The Sun Also Ri
5、ses,A Farewell to Arms,and For Whom the Bell Tolls are young men whose strength and self-confidence nevertheless coexist with a sensitivity that leaves them deeply scarred by their wartime experiences.War was for Hemingway a potent symbol of the world,which he viewed as complex,filled with moral amb
6、iguities,and offering almost unavoidable pain,hurt,and destruction.To survive in such a world,and perhaps emerge victorious,one must conduct oneself with honour,courage,endurance,and dignity,a set of principles known as“the Hemingway code.”To behave well in the lonely,losing battle with life is to s
7、how“grace under pressure”and constitutes in itself a kind of victory,a theme clearly established in The Old Man and the Sea.Writing StyleuIn striving to be as objective and honest as possible,Hemingway hit upon the device of describing a series of actions by using short,simple sentences from which a
8、ll comment or emotional rhetoric has been eliminated.These sentences are composed largely of nouns and verbs,have few adjectives and adverbs,and rely on repetition and rhythm for much of their effect.The resulting terse,concentrated prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable
9、 of conveying great irony through understatement.Hemingways use of dialogue was similarly fresh,simple,and natural-sounding.The influence of this style was felt worldwide wherever novels were written,particularly from the 1930s through the 50s.Modern receptionuA consummately contradictory man,Heming
10、way achieved a fame surpassed by few,if any,American authors of the 20th century.The virile nature of his writing,which attempted to re-create the exact physical sensations he experienced in wartime,big-game hunting,and bullfighting,in fact masked an aesthetic sensibility of great delicacy.He was a
11、celebrity long before he reached middle age,but his popularity continues to be validated by serious critical opinion.Ernest Hemingway bibliographyuNovelsu(1926)The Torrents of Springu(1926)The Sun Also Risesu(1929)A Farewell to Armsu(1937)To Have and Have Notu(1940)For Whom the Bell Tollsu(1950)Acro
12、ss the River and into the Treesu(1952)The Old Man and the Seau(1970)Islands in the Streamu(1986)The Garden of EdenNonfiction(1932)Death in the Afternoon(1935)Green Hills of Africa(1962)Hemingway,The Wild Years(1964)A Moveable Feast(1967)By-Line:Ernest Hemingway(1970)Ernest Hemingway:Cub Reporter(198
13、5)The Dangerous Summer(1985)Dateline:Toronto(2019)True at First Light(2019)Under KilimanjaroThe Snows of KilimanjarouThis short story-written in 1938-reflects several of Hemingways personal concerns during the 1930s regarding his existence as a writer and his life in general.Hemingway remarked in Gr
14、een Hills that politics,women,drink,money and ambition damage American writers.His fear that his own acquaintances with rich people might harm his integrity as a writer becomes evident in this story.The text in italics also reveals Hemingways fear of leaving his own work of life unfinished.uIn broad
15、er terms,The Snows of Kilimanjaro should be viewed as an example of an author of the Lost Generation,who experienced the world wars and the war in Spain,which led them to question moral and philosophy.Hemingway,in particular,found himself in a moral vacuum when he felt alienated from the church,whic
16、h was closely affiliated with Franco in Spain,and which he felt obliged to distance himself from.As a result,he came up with his own code of human conduct:a mixture of hedonism and sentimental humanism.Analysis of“The Snows of Kilimanjaro”uSummaryuThemeuCharactersuSymbolsuStyleuModernismSummaryuAs t
17、he story opens,the speaker,later identified as Harry,is proclaiming that something is painless.It soon reveals that Harry and his wife,Helen,are encamped somewhere near Mount Kilimanjaro,which,at nearly twenty thousand feet,is Africas highest mountain.An epigraph at the beginning of the story,before
18、 the action is under way,describes the snow-capped mountain,mentioning that the name for its western summit is translated from the local Masai language as the House of God.SummaryuExtensive dialogue at the beginning of the story reveals that the speakers,husband and wife,have a combative relationshi
19、p.Harry has ceased to be in love with Helen,although she adores him.In Harrys dialogue,one quickly detects a deep-seated underlying anger and a contempt for not just Helen but all women.Indeed,Harry feels and expresses guilt about the deterioration of his relationship with his wife,who has quite wil
20、lingly put her considerable fortune at Harrys disposal.The rub is that the comfortable life that Helen has provided seems to have robbed Harry of the motivation he needs to write.Harry and Helen have left their superficial rich friends behind in Paris,where they are pursuing their inconsequential li
21、ves.Harry toys with idea of writing about the idle rich,viewing himself as a sort of spy in their territory.SummaryuIt is soon revealed that Harry is on his deathbed,suffering from gangrene that is moving rapidly from his lower legs to other parts of his body.He and Helen,along with their African se
22、rvant,Molo,are stranded in this remote part of Tanganyika because an inept driver failed to check the oil in their truck,causing it to burn out a bearing and become inoperable.Their only hope now is that a plane will land on their compound and fly Harry to a medical facility.SummaryuThroughout the s
23、tory,Harry vacillates between consciousness and unconsciousness.His conscious periods become shorter and shorter.Unconsciousness reveries of his past fill his mind and reveal a great deal about his past.The passages during the unconscious state are printed in italics except for the one very near the
24、 end in which Harry hallucinates about the plane coming to rescue him.SummaryuAs it turns out,Harrys illusion of the plane is just that:an illusion.In the end,Helen has Harrys cot carried into their tent.Before long,she tries to rouse him but cannot.She becomes aware that his breathing has stopped,j
25、ust as a hyena,a carnivore that feeds on dead animals,howls outside their tent.ThemeAn underlying theme in“The Snows of Kilimanjaro”concerns the inroads that wealth can make on talent.Harry was once regarded as a promising author,a part of the expatriate movement that flourished in Paris following W
26、orld War I.Hemingway,very much a part of this literary group,uses this story to articulate a great many of his own fears and feelings regarding his problems.The story has strong autobiographical elements,although the facts of Hemingways existence that it often suggests are not intended to be taken a
27、s accurate autobiographical accounts of his life.Theme Alienation and NihilismuTwo themes common in Modernism are found in the story:alienation and Nihilism.Harry has lived a life of alienation,emotionally distant from his several wives and never identifying with or belonging to the wealthy society
28、in which he has lived,courtesy of his most recent wifes money.As he dies,no spiritual faith sustains him.He has no thoughts of a Supreme Being or an afterlife.He thinks only of all he intended to write but did not write.He worships only the gift he squandered.CharactersComptonCompton flies the plane
29、 that is meant to take Harry back to the city to save his life.He is confident and tries to make Harry feel better about his predicament.However,he exists only in Harrys dream.HarryHarry is the protagonist of the story.He is a writer and has had many experiences in Europe.He also very much enjoys bi
30、g-game hunting.When the story begins,Harry is suffering from gangrene in his leg and he is dying in the African backcountry while waiting for a plane to take him to the city.MoloMolo is the African servant who serves Helen and Harry.He does very little in the story apart from bringing Harry whiskey
31、and sodas.CharactersuHelenHelenuHarrys wife Helen,also known as The Wife,remains unnamed until the end of the story,when a delirious Harry finally refers to her by name as he dies.After Harry reaches the summit of Kilimanjaro,the previous narrative voice resumes and again calls her simply the woman.
32、Harry does not seem to love her,but he respects her to a certain degree for her skill with a gun.She comes from a wealthy family and Harry has contempt for that.She,on the other hand,cares for him greatly and tries to ease his suffering.SymbolsuThe frozen leopard on the summit of Kilimanjaro is asso
33、ciated with death,immortality,and possibly redemption.uThe hyena and vultures are associated with illness,fear,and death.uKilimanjaro itself,though its role has sparked the most controversy among scholars and critics,seems associated with a sort of redemptive heavenly afterlife.uLow-lying,hot plains
34、 areas are associated with difficult or painful episodes in Harrys life,including the situation in which he begins the story,and snowy mountainous areas are associated with his happier,more uplifting experiences,including his final imagined ascent to the top of Kilimanjaro.uGangrene,the rotting of t
35、he flesh,is symbolic of Harrys rotting soul.Styleu“The Snows of Kilimanjaro”is told in the third person and is rich with dialogue.In the italicized portions,which represent Harrys mental meanderings during his frequent periods of unconsciousness,the reader encounters a man who has wandered around Eu
36、rope,has slept with a great variety of women,and has used other people shamelessly.StyleuAlways,however,there is a nagging conscience in Harry that is closely related to the overall sense of loneliness that his exploits cannot eradicate.This underlying guilt is much a part of the Harry-Helen interac
37、tion in“The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”It reveals a decency in Harry that on careful consideration eclipses his cynicism and self-serving behavior.ModernismuThe story is very reflective of Modernism,as are many of Hemingways other works,such as his first two novels,The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Ar
38、ms.ModernismuThe structure of the narrative is Modernistic as Hemingway shifts back and forth from the traditional narrative form to the italicized passages that reveal the protagonists private thoughts and memories.Although the italicized passages are not written in first person or stream of consci
39、ousness,they are innovative and effective in exploring the psychology of Harrys inner life,his feelings and memories.Another unusual technique of structure is employed in the storys conclusion as Hemingway moves back and forth between events happening in reality and events happening only in Harrys m
40、ind as he approaches death-without distinguishing reality from hallucination.ModernismuFinally,an especially interesting element of Modernism in the story is Hemingways employment of allusion.Harrys tough and unsympathetic observations about his former friend Julians destruction is an easily identif
41、ied reference to F.Scott Fitzgerald,Hemingways former friend who had suffered a severe emotional breakdown.Responsive questions：u1.Discuss Hemingways attitude toward life and death.u2.What are the characteristics of language used in the story?u3.Apart from the frequent dialogues,there are also insta
42、nces of“stream of consciousness”.Discuss the authors use of this device.Further readinguThe Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway:The Finca Viga Edition(1987)uMontgomery,Marion.The Leopard and the Hyena:Symbol and Meaning in The Snows of Kilimanjaro.The University of Kansas City Review 27.4(June 1961):277-282.Rpt.in Short Story Criticism.Ed.Lawrence J.Trudeau.Vol.25.Detroit:Gale,2019.Literature Resource Center.Web.25 June 2019.The End Thank You
