 |
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway first published in August 1936, in Esquire magazine. [1] It was republished in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories in 1938, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories in 1961, and is included in The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigía Edition (1987).
The story opens with a paragraph about Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, whose western summit is called in Masai the "House of God." There, we are told, lies the frozen carcass of a leopard near the summit. No one knows why it is there at such altitude.
The reader is introduced to Harry, a writer dying of gangrene, and Helen, who is with him on safari in Africa. They are stranded in the camp, because a bearing in their truck's engine burnt out. Harry's situation makes him irritable, and he speaks about his impending death in a matter-of-fact, sarcastic way that upsets Helen. He quarrels with her over minute things, from whether he should drink a whiskey and soda, to whether she should read to him. Helen is obviously concerned for his welfare, but Harry's frustration makes him treat her poorly.
Harry then begins to ruminate on his life experiences, which have been many and varied, and on the fact that he feels he has never reached his potential as a writer because he has chosen to make his living by marrying wealthy women. In italicized portions of the text that are scattered throughout the story, Hemingway narrates some of Harry's experiences in a stream-of-consciousness style. Harry's first memories consist of traveling around Europe following a battle: hiding a deserter in a cottage, hunting and skiing in the mountains, playing cards during a blizzard, and hearing about a bombing run on a train full of Austrian officers.
Harry then falls asleep and wakes in the evening to find Helen returning from a shooting expedition. He meditates on how she really is thoughtful and good to him, and how she is not to blame that his talent as a writer has been destroyed. Helen, he remembers, is a rich widow who lost her husband and a child, was bored by a series of lovers, and eventually "acquired" Harry because "she wanted some one that she respected with her"; she loves Harry "dearly as a writer, as a man, as a companion and as a proud possession", while Harry makes it clear that he does not love her. Harry then recalls how he developed gangrene two weeks earlier: they had been trying to get a picture of some waterbuck, and Harry scratched his right knee on a thorn. He had not applied iodine right away, and the wound got infected; because all other antiseptics ran out, he used a weak carbolic solution that "paralyzed the minute blood vessels", thus the leg developed gangrene.
As Helen returns to drink cocktails with Harry, they make up over their quarrel. Harry's second memory sequence then begins. He recalls how he once patronized prostitutes in Constantinople "to kill his loneliness", pining for the very first woman he fell in love with, with whom he quarreled in Paris and broke up. Harry had a fight with a British soldier over an Armenian prostitute, and then left Constantinople for Anatolia, where, after running from a group of Turkish soldiers, "he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse". Then Harry recalls that upon his return to Paris, his then-wife inquired about a letter that was actually from Harry's first love—a reply to the letter he wrote to that woman (mailed to New York, asking to write to his office in Paris) while being in Constantinople.
Helen and Harry eat dinner, and then Harry has another memory—this time of how his grandfather's log house burned down. He then relates how he fished in the Black Forest, and how he lived in a poor quarter of Paris and felt a kinship with his poor neighbors. Next, he remembers a ranch and a boy he turned in to the sheriff after the boy protected Harry's horse feed by shooting and killing a thief. Harry ponders: "That was one story he had saved to write. He knew at least twenty good stories from out there and he had never written one. Why?". Then he felt once again that he'd prefer to be in different company rather than with Helen, as the "rich were dull". Next, his thoughts wander to beating the fear of death, and the limits of being able to bear pain. He remembers an officer named Williamson who was hit by a bomb, and to whom Harry subsequently fed all his morphine tablets. Harry considers how he does not have to worry about pain in his current condition.
As Harry lies on his cot remembering, he feels the overwhelming presence of death and associates it with the hyena that has been spotted running around the edge of the campsite. He is unable to speak. Helen, thinking that Harry has fallen asleep, has him moved into the tent for the night. Harry dreams that it is morning, and that a man called Compton has come with a plane to rescue him. He is lifted onto the plane (which has space only for him and the pilot) and watches the landscape go by beneath him. Suddenly, he sees the snow-covered top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and knows that is where he is bound. Helen wakes up in the middle of the night to a strange hyena cry, and finds Harry unresponsive on his cot. It is not specified whether or not Harry is already dead. [2]
A film adaptation of the short story, directed by Henry King, written by Casey Robinson, and starring Gregory Peck as Harry, Susan Hayward as Helen, and Ava Gardner as Cynthia Green (a character invented for the film) appeared in 1952. The film's ending does not mirror the story's ending.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
A Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel describes a love affair between the American expatriate and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley.
Margaux Louise Hemingway was an American fashion model and actress. The granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway, she gained independent fame as a supermodel in the 1970s, appearing on the covers of magazines including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Time. Her younger sister Mariel is a well-known Hollywood actress.
A Moveable Feast is a memoir by Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling expatriate journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s. It was published posthumously in 1964. The book chronicles Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley Richardson and his relationships with other cultural figures of the Lost Generation in interwar France.
The Sun Also Rises is the first novel by the American writer Ernest Hemingway. It portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work" and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner's. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print.
Martha Ellis Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century. She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career.
Green Hills of Africa is a 1935 work of nonfiction by American writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway's second work of nonfiction, Green Hills of Africa is an account of a month on safari he and his wife, Pauline Marie Pfeiffer, took in East Africa during December 1933. Green Hills of Africa is divided into four parts: "Pursuit and Conversation", "Pursuit Remembered", "Pursuit and Failure", and "Pursuit as Happiness", each of which plays a different role in the story.
True at First Light is a book by American writer Ernest Hemingway about his 1953–54 safari in Kenya with his fourth wife Mary. It was released posthumously in his centennial year in 1999. In the book, which blends memoir and fiction, Hemingway explores conflict within a marriage, the conflict between the European and native cultures in Africa, and the fear a writer feels when his work becomes impossible. True at First Light includes descriptions of his earlier friendships with other writers and digressive ruminations on the nature of writing.
"Soldier's Home" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was included in the 1925 Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers and published by Boni & Liveright in Hemingway's 1925 New York collection short stories, In Our Time.
To Have and Have Not is a 1944 American romantic war adventure film directed by Howard Hawks, loosely based on Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan and Lauren Bacall; it also features Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, and Marcel Dalio. The plot, centered on the romance between a freelancing fisherman in Martinique and a beautiful American drifter, is complicated by the growing French resistance in Vichy France.
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories is an anthology of writings by Ernest Hemingway published by Scribner's on October 14, 1938. It contains Hemingway's only full-length play, The Fifth Column, and 49 short stories.
In Love and War is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the book, Hemingway in Love and War by Henry S. Villard and James Nagel. The film stars Sandra Bullock, Chris O'Donnell, Mackenzie Astin, and Margot Steinberg. Its action takes place during the First World War and is based on the wartime experiences of the writer Ernest Hemingway. It was directed by Richard Attenborough. The film was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.
Vivienne Florence Beatrice de Watteville was a British travel writer and adventurer, author of two books based on her experiences in East Africa in the 1920s, Out in the Blue (1927) and Speak to the Earth (1935). She is best remembered for taking charge of and continuing an expedition in the Congo and Uganda at the age of 24, when her father was killed by a lion.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a 1952 American Technicolor romantic adventure film directed by Henry King from a screenplay by Casey Robinson, based on the 1936 short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gregory Peck as Harry Street, Susan Hayward as Helen, and Ava Gardner as Cynthia Green. The film's ending does not mirror that of the short story.
The Sun Also Rises is a 1957 American drama film adaptation of the 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name directed by Henry King. The screenplay was written by Peter Viertel and it starred Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, and Errol Flynn. Much of it was filmed on location in France and Spain as well as Mexico in Cinemascope and color by Deluxe. A highlight of the film is the famous "running of the bulls" in Pamplona, Spain and two bullfights.
"Fathers and Sons" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway published 1933, in the collection Winner Take Nothing. It later appeared in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories and The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories.
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
"Cross Country Snow" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. The story was first published in 1924 in Ford Madox Ford's literary magazine Transatlantic Review in Paris and republished by Boni & Liveright in Hemingway's first American volume of short stories In Our Time in 1925. The story features Hemingway's recurrent autobiographical character Nick Adams and explores the regenerative powers of nature and the joy of skiing.
"The Revolutionist" is an Ernest Hemingway short story published in his first American volume of stories In Our Time. Originally written as a vignette for his earlier Paris edition of the collection, titled in our time, he rewrote and expanded the piece for the 1925 American edition published by Boni & Liveright. It is only one of two vignettes rewritten as short stories for the American edition.
I Called Him Morgan is a 2016 Swedish produced documentary film written and directed by Kasper Collin which offers an account of the life of jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan, and his relationship with his common-law wife Helen Morgan, who killed him in February 1972.
