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The Snows Of Kilimanjaro Essay

Decent Essays

Deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil; salvation. Harry, the central character in Hemmingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, has lost his ambition and drive as well as his talent which he blames his wife for. The African safari was supposed to put his life back on track, but instead Harry finds himself on his death bed. Harry blames his wife, because he has come to rely on her money instead of pursing his writing. Harry, like Hemmingway, is part of the lost generation. Harry feels that he is leaving behind unfinished business, because he never got to be the writer he felt he could be. Because Harry has become dependent upon his wife’s money, he never receives his spiritual salvation until he is close to death and is recused by the rescue plane. …show more content…

We can see this reflected in the flashbacks that Harry has on his failed writing career. Along the way something always got in the way of his writing. Each flashback illustrates something that harry meant to write about but never did. In the first flashback Harry remembers a railway station in Karagatch Turkey, the snow covered mountains of Bulgaria, and the winter ski resorts in Vorarlberg and Arlberg. Harry also remembers the gambling. Gambling became a distraction, and he ended up loosing it all. “When there was no snow you gambled, and when there was too much you gambled. He thought about all the time in his life that he had spent gambling. But he had never written a line of that” (Hemmingway 829). Instead of using this opportunity to write, Harry spends his time gambling. These experiences are prefect opportunities for artistic expression, but Harry squanders it. Harry’s thirst for money overpowers his desire to write, which he later regrets on his death

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