The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Death is inevitable. Especially when we know how it came about making its way onto our destined path. But what would we end up doing with what little time we have left? What would we reflect on? What would be the last thoughts and images that come to us in those last days, hours, minutes of our life? Hemingway’s story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” takes this idea and puts it into effect through Harry, a character in the story who is on his last leg of life (no pun intended).

After a seemingly insignificant scratch from a thorn, Harry’s leg becomes gangrenous. He feels it in himself that he doesn’t have much time left in life, even with the insistence from his wife that he has the ability to hold on for a little while longer, at least until a plane comes to pick them up.

“You know it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “It’s that I’ve gotten so very nervous not being able to do anything. I think we might make it as easy as we can until the plane comes.”

“Or until the plane doesn’t come.”

Despite her optimistic outlook, Harry doesn’t share the same view. He begins to reflect upon the things that he was unable to accomplish in his life. The things that were on his bucket list, so to speak, of memories to write down and have a lasting record of.

Since the gangrene started in his right leg he had no pain and with the pain the horror had gone and all he felt now was a great tiredness and anger that this was the end of it. For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity.

For years it had obsessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. It was strange how easy being tired enough made it.

Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.

Harry begins to reflect on his memories. He even begins to reflect on the relationship he has with his wife, and how he isn’t truly happy with her, but questions whether these thoughts are his true feelings or something brought on by the slow spread of sickness that is now taking him down. After a night’s sleep, Harry finds himself in a better mood with his wife.

Eventually, Harry meets the inevitable. He begins to literally feel death upon him. The weight of the end of his life upon him.

Because, just then, death had come and rested its head on the foot of the cot and he could smell its breath.

“Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull,” he told her. “It can be two bicycle policemen as easily, or be a bird. Or it can have a wide snout like a hyena.”

It had moved up on him now, but it had no shape any more. It simply occupied space.

“Tell it to go away.”

It did not go away but moved a little closer.

“You’ve got a hell of a breath,” he told it. “You stinking bastard.”

It moved up closer to him still and now he could not speak to it, and when it saw he could not speak it came a little closer, and now he tried to send it away without speaking, but it moved in on him so its weight was all upon his chest, and while it crouched there and he could not move or speak, he heard the woman say, “Bwana is asleep now. Take the cot up very gently and carry it into the tent.”

He could not speak to tell her to make it go away and it crouched now, heavier, so he could not breathe. And then, while they lifted the cot, suddenly it was all right and the weight went from his chest.

 

This inevitability of death, and being unable to finish the things that we have wanted to do and accomplish in life is, I think, one of the main ideas of the story. Harry had so many memories, some that he knew and loved, some that he had not fully come to understand the real weight of in his life, but was unable to put them down to review them.

If Aiden were to ask me about “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” I would tell him that sometimes in life, there are things we can’t help and can’t control. Harry could have forseen becoming ill from a small scratch, but didn’t look at the big picture of what could happen to him, which led to his death. Because of this, he didn’t have the time that he really wanted to document his life. He wasn’t able to put something down that would outlast him. I think it is this idea that a person will not always be around to tell us about things that happened in the past and to give us those insights into our personal events is one of the reasons why I have loved taking pictures of Aiden since the moment he was born. I want that record for him to have when i’m gone. I want him to be able to see those good moments, and maybe even the bad, in life that I won’t be able to tell him once I, too, have reached those last moments of my life.