The snows of Kilimanjaro

Ernest Hemingway’s Concept of Courage ---Take “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” as an Example

Ernest Hemingway’s Concept of Courage

-----Take “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” as an Example

Abstract：Ernest Hemingway is generally regarded as the spokesman for the lost generation. He is famous for his novels and short stories and all his stories deal with the theme of courage in face of tragedy. Hemingway spends one year writing “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” to reflect his writing because the publishment of “Death in the Afternoon” and “Green Hills of Africa” are censured by the outside. He shapes the protagonist---- a writer Harry who is dying physically and psychologically and whose soul is free and sublimed at the end of his life. The famous American critic Malcolm Cowley once said this short story is Hemingway’s most skilled one. I will appreciate this short story on Harry’s courage when he faces death, women’s courage in Hemingway’s works, the six parts of the theme of d eath and the symbol of leopard which reveals soul’s eternity.

Key Word: Hemingway; courage; the theme of death; leopard and free and eternity of life

Body:

The hero Harry in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” gets his leg infected with gangrene, lies on the cot and can’t move. He waits the plane to carry him to treat his disease with his lover, but the fact is that he does not think the plane will come. When he is dying on the cot, he thinks of his life and his writing career. The theme of death is repeated in the six parts of recalls which are inserted in narrating. Finally the plane in the dream carries Harry to the leopard which is on the summit of Kilimanjaro and means eternity and purity of soul.

I. Harry is Courageous when He Faces Death

Hemingway’s works are autobiographical in a way. He spends a large part of his time in big game hunting in Africa and following bullfights in Spain. His own adventures life provides much raw material for his strong masculine story. He writes in “The Sun Also Rises” that he wants to hunt in east Africa in 1926. On the way to east Africa in 1934, Hemingway infects dysentery and the disease deteriorates. His white assistant rents a private plane to send him to accept better treat. He returns to hunt after a week and remembers the plane which saves him. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, the plane appears in Harry’s dream, but it does not save Harry’s life. This time the plane carries Harry to Kilimanjaro---the eternity of his life.

Harry’s words and behavior of waiting death are strong evidences to show a man’s courage. Firstly, lying on the cot and can’t move, Harry waits the plane but he does not think the plane will come. “…I think we might make it as easy as we can until the plane comes.” “Or until the plane does not come.” That means Harry is waiting for death soberly. He knows