Hemingway opens his story with
an epigraph, a short, pithy observation about a lone leopard who sought the tip
of Kilimanjaro.
This story is about safari again. And as well as in "Short and happy life
of Francis Macomber" the main characters go on a trip to put their life
back on track.
Concerning the structure of
this story, we should say that Hemingway divides it into six sections and
within each of these sections inserts a flashback that appears in italic,
continually juxtaposing the hopeless present with the past, which often seemed
full of promise. The flashbacks themselves centre around concerns about the
erosion of values: lost love, drinking, revenge, and war.
The story is full of symbols. The symbolism of Kilimanjaro is contrasted with
the symbolism of the plains. Harry is dying in the plains from gangrene, a
deadly infection, causing his body to rot and turn greenish black. Against
Harry's background of dark, smelly horror and hopelessness, Hemingway contrasts
Harry's memories of the good times that he had in the mountains. Good things
happen in the mountains; bad things happen on the plains. Hemingway ends his
story with Harry's spirit triumphant, as when Harry dies, his spirit is
released and travels to the summit of the mighty mountain where the square top
of Kilimanjaro is "wide as all the world"; it is incredibly white as
it shines dazzlingly in the sunlight. The mountain is brilliant, covered with
pure white snow; it is incredibly clean — a clean, well-lighted place. When
Harry looks at Kilimanjaro, he sees it as a symbol of truth, idealism, and
purity. When he dies, tragic irony exists. The leopard died in a high, clean,
well-lighted place; Harry, in contrast, dies rotting and stinking on the
plains.
But I think that Harry is only one of the main characters. Though the story is definitely about him. But what about his wife? Her life story is also narrated. But we collect it from pieces, bits of information. Her line is the most tragic one. She lost her first husband, her child. She couldn't cope with that stress and began to drink, drink a lot. Then she met Harry. She became happy with him. But what will happen next? Will she overcome his death? will she begin to drink again? Will she ever live with and love some man? Hemingway left these questions unanswered. he made us think...
(by Asya)
The whole story is full of different images that symbolize lots of things of the life. The action takes place on the safari. There we can see the relationships between a young woman and a man. But at the end of the story the main character dies. He was wounded. But if we start to compare the death of the leopard and the death of the man then we can see lots of contradictions. First of all the leopard itself is a strong beautiful animal. Of course this is just a created symbol of the author because on the one hand this is a simple irony to see the leopard that tries to get the mountain. But on the other hand, if we compare its death with the death of Harry there are some differences. Harry dreams of getting the top. He is quite strong and though he really wants to achieve something these are just small things in the life that he will never be able to get. You make your living so as you can or you want. But if we start analyzing Harry’s wish, we can understand that sometimes people want this or that, but still we’ll never be able to be ideal, and nothing in our life can be as ideal as this strong animal that still after everything that it has overcome, dies, so to say at the top of the dream. Here we can also see that Harry just thinks that he managed to make his dream real. But the truth is not so pleasant. He died, and it seems that the author just wants to face his readers with this terrible death that simply stopped the life: not so perfect, but this is just the truth that the author revealed.
(by Luck)
The story takes place in Africa. There are two main
characters Garry and his girl-friend. He injured his leg and forgot to put
iodine on it and now the gangrene appeared. Now he feels that he will die. He
doesn’t want to fight for his life doesn’t believe in rescue. His wife tries to
give him support, she loves him, she is afraid of loss him. But their relations
are not sincere. He doesn’t love her, he said that she is a very intelligent
and kind, he praises her, but he also said that she is as others. May be little
richer.
In this story Hemingway uses a method story in the
story, which explains why Hemingway killed his main character. Garry couldn’t
use the time that had been given to him in the right way. When he tried to sum
up the events we see that he wasn’t a positive character. He understood that
lies were more successful with women, so he lied as that there was no truth to
tell. He had a talent but he destroyed it himself. He hated the people around
him as opposed to his girlfriend, (he wanted not only to write about them, but
to unmask them, he said that it was his duty, and now he never would). He was
with this women only because she was rich. We learn that he was always
interested in rich women, and he changed them from time to time, and the new
girl was richer than previous. It is also significant that we don’t know any
details about his women, nothing about her soul. So Garry doesn’t rate his life
highly, that’s why he died.
There are also many symbols in the story which
prepares us for the tragedy: big birds squatted on the tree in the first part
of the story, than we see that even they no longer waited on the ground, the
sun was gone, hyena screaming in the night, the sunset. So we feel that this
tragedy was inevitable.
(by Ayayulia)
