What is also striking about the medical-sounding but deeply metaphorical description of what went wrong with his leg is that it is immediately followed by a sudden nasty and vehement attack on Helen’s old money and his jab about her leaving her old money people to “take him on.” Not only is the idea of her “taking him on” aggressive and offensive-sounding—as if it had been Helen’s aim all along to destroy his essence as a write and seduce him into a coma-inducing life of luxury—it completely ignores his own part in succumbing to the easier life. At this point it is clear that Harry does not take complete responsibility for his creative gangrene and emptiness but instead prefers to find other causes. In many cases throughout the story Harry does not consider himself to be the sole cause of his affliction, but is wont to blame his lack of inspiration and devotion to his craft on others who seduce him, particularly the women like Helen whom he makes “his bread and butter by” (1852). However, almost as though the figurative fever dissipates for a moment, relieving the paranoid vision of himself as a victim, Harry occasionally realizes in striking moments that he has only himself to blame.

At one point, he suddenly turns his cruel focus away from Helen and gazes inward, saying, “He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, by snobbery, ,by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook” (1853). Moments like this allow the reader to see the conflicted nature of his soul and more importantly, to view him as more complex since he clearly does not hate Helen for causing his misfortunes and slack as a writer. This sense of conflict about her role in his demise as a writer is most clearly articulated when the narrator, who has intimate knowledge of Harry’s inner being, refers to Helen as “this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent” (1853). Even from the beginning of the story, “the professional impotence which he has experienced for some time manifests itself, by the time of the action of the story, in a barrage of self-pitying, cowardly, and cruel observations. The bitterness of these perceptions is compounded by the fact that he is now literally dying, whereas before he was merely partly dead morally” (Whitlow 54). This inner conflict is part of the venom—part of the main source of the gangrene-like infection of his soul and creativity and is present in his other dealings with women (especially rich ones) whom he discusses briefly throughout his reminiscences.

There are a number of ways the infection metaphor persists throughout “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and there are also different ways of perceiving it. While it has been suggested here that the life of comfort that he cannot refuse is the initial source of infection along with being unable or unwilling to treat the situation to discourage worsening, others have offered related ideas about the meaning of the infection metaphor. For instance, one scholar suggests that Harry’s “artistic conscience, although feeble, is still alive, gnawing at his soul. His failure to care for a thorn scratch on his knee a few weeks ago fits into the pattern of his small neglects, over the years, of his artistic talent. In both cases, the fault is clearly his” (Johnston 224). These little acts of forgetting his purpose as a writer build gradually until he cannot tell a story without resorting to doing so in a fit of sorts. All of his stories are further frustrated by the fact that they cannot be dictated—it is too late for him to express these ideas and leave something meaningful behind. In exchange, they come out without any sense of connectedness and almost like dreams in terms of their lack of relation to one another and constantly conflicted sets of emotions, themes, images and ideas. In other words, this broken structure of his last and most reserved tales is infected by this hurried desire to spew; to release them from his soul or to sever them like a gangrenous leg.

As “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” progresses and it becomes clear that Harry is afflicted in every conceivable way aside from the most obvious physical infection, the nuances of the structure of the story begin to become clearer. The issue of the intense and incredibly long-winded stories that Harry desperately tries to write in his mind so that he can hold them one last time are full of subtle meanings and icebergs that stand independent to the point where each would require its own set of many pages. Instead of delving into the meaning of them all individually, however, it is important to note their feverish intensity which is almost infallibly followed by a motherly request or statement from his “kindly caretaker” that brings both Harry and the reader out of the fantastic and engaging world of the storyteller. This cut-off structure serves two purposes and the structure is itself a metaphor for intense longing to do what can no longer be done. On the one hand, the sudden release into the calm civilized voice of Helen the reader experiences from these fevered intense stories that are ripe with life and blunt description make one feel the sudden cut-off from the creative, vital and ideal world Harry wishes to live in versus the stark and, by comparison, rather mundane world of his wife. While this helps the reader understand Harry’s crisis more acutely, this structural shift also brings home the sadness of his last wishes to write something meaningful so desperately when he is clearly so unable. The italicized text and long descriptive sentences stand in sharp contrast to the droll and pedestrian conversations he has with Helen immediately following; almost as though both Harry and the reader have been suddenly and without desiring to, snapped back into reality.  At one point, in one of his most lucid moments during his story the narrator says of Harry, “He had never written any of that because, at first, he never wanted to hurt anyone and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write…He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would” (1857).

The idea of infection that runs throughout “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is further emphasized by the presence of carrion feeder birds as well as the hyena, both of which are harbingers of death, decay, and disease. These “dirty” animals are contrasted with the more romantic images of a frozen leopard atop a snow-covered mountain and while these two have nothing in common, they are diametrically opposed while still retaining symbolic and metaphorical importance to the reader’s understanding of Harry. While the beginning of the story offers readers the sadly heroic image of a leopard who climbed far too high and perished, this is not, at least by the end of the story, a symbol or metaphor for Harry as he existed. If anything, the leopard symbolizes his dreams to break free of his creature comforts and begin writing in earnest again. Like Harry, once he climbed to a certain height he was able to go no further andsimply froze. Instead of being most closely associated with the leopard, the hyena, a symbol of death is far more appropriate. He has lived on the existence of others and is given to either mad maniacal howling fits or periods of a brooding watchfulness. By placing these two symbolic animals across from one another, Hemingway is almost forcing the reader to choose a side to defend in an argument about the allegorical nature of the story and what, if any, hero or heroic ideal exists.

By the end of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” these numerous metaphors and allusions to frustrated desire, loss, and the death of talent through a spiritual or creative infected are brought together into a more meaningful allegory. The end reveals a man of great talent who allowed himself to succumb to the pleasures of the everyday man and the rich—pleasures which are off-limits to a creative force who thrives off of being among the poor and those who are full of life and interesting stories. In effect, Harry has become what he what he most resented and found unworthy of writing about and this, not necessarily his inglorious death, is the real tragedy. While he blamed Helen (who, it is clear, is merely an innocent bystander with the best intentions, albeit a lack of understanding of her husband) and drink and any number of things in his life, it was ultimately his courage that was the metaphorical scrape on the knee. He was never able to pluck himself out of a comfortable situation, perhaps out of fear of ideas such he mentioned; hurting people, being afraid to write about what truly mattered or letting himself truly engage with life.  Despite Harry’s vision, “In reality, the rescue plane does not arrive on time and Harry’s corpse is discovered by his wife in the tent. The rescue and flight to Kilimanjaro are only what-might-have-been…The tent, the abode of the transient, is fitting shelter for the artistic failure” (Johnston 227).

Works Cited

Gajdusek, Robert E. “Purgation/Debridement as Therapy/Aesthetics.” Hemingway Review 4.2 (1985) 12-17.

Johnston, Kenneth G. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro: An African Purge.” Studies in Short Fiction 21.3 (1984), 223-227.

Whitlow, Roger. “Critical misinterpretation of Hemingway’s Helen.” Frontiers 3.3 (1978), 52-54.