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Reflections on Death in The Snows of Kilimanjaro Essays

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Reflections on Death in The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro is stereotypical of "The Lost Generation" and their values. They were a generation of expatriated US writers that lived and wrote between the Great Wars and thought of themselves separates from the postwar values and "above" the materialistic western society and continuously question morality and philosophy in their work. They tended to think very little of the rich people. These reflections on life are clear during Harry's retrospectives all throughout the story. In this all around depressing story, Harry is in Africa with his wife and a few days back scratched his leg and it got infected to the point of gangrene. Since the begging of the …show more content…

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."3 It is clear that the author thinks of himself as a failure and is afraid to take a risk in writing as much as in life in general. All the way through his life it seems that Harry has taken the easy way out and though conscious that it was not the right thing to do did it anyway. Even by giving up his only true love, which is writing and settling on been a sort of freeloader.

"Why, I loved you. That's not fair. I love you now. I'll always love you. Don't you love me?" "No," said the man. "I don't think so. I never have."4 In this part the narrator, Harry, makes it clear that he does not love his rich aristocrat wife. "Don't pay any attention, darling, to what I say. I love you, really. You know I love you. I've never loved any one else the way I love you. He slipped into the familiar lie he made his bread and butter by."5 Now we have a clear sign that Harry does not love his wife, he is just with her for the money so he did not have to work as a writer and ultimately fail. This of course, for him was a way of life and it was not the first time he used rich women like this as shown by the next quote. "He had had his life and it was over and then he went

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