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  • Essay / The concepts of death and art in The Snows of Kilimanjaro

    In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, Harry went to Africa with his wife to try to rediscover his former literary motivation; in “the good days of his life”, he had been happy in Africa. His desire to write was softened by the comfort and luxury offered by the wealth of Hélène, his wife. After spending years “with different people and more money, with the best of the same places and a few new ones,” he reaches a state of artistic stagnation from which he cannot escape (59). He came to Africa to live a time without luxury and with “the minimum of comfort”, to recreate some of the feeling of his old life before money (60). A parallel is drawn between wealth and an idiosyncratic kind of non-corporeal death: the death of creativity, initiative, and meaningful experience. Harry has been dying this way for years and, ironically, it is only as his physical death approaches that his aesthetic sensibilities are resurrected. In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, the death of the physical body does not exclude the continuation of other, more esoteric modes of being; Through the resurgence of his art, Harry is able to lead another life, one that continues even after the death of his physical body. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Harry's old life, one of colorful and deeply felt experiences, stands in direct contrast to the life he began once he allied himself with the rich. “The rich were boring and…. . they were repetitive,” Harry says. Even if he lived, he would not write about Helene or “any of them.” They were not the “special glamor breed” they were thought to be (72). Money was armor, Harry said, "Your damn money was my armor." My Swift and my armor” (58). Money protects him from the difficulties of the world, like armor would, but it also cuts him off from the world. vital element of the artist: significant experience. So money has, metaphorically, enabled the slow death of his artistic spirit by allowing his life to become too safe, too predictable, too sheltered. Harry no longer feels things deeply; he admits to having never loved Hélène. However, he remains trapped in a circle of those who “drank too much” or “played too much backgammon” (72). Such is the life of the rich: made of repetitive and boring excesses; Henry feels this lack and, in his reflections, dying in Africa, he regrets the turn his life has taken in recent years: the aesthetic, the literary, no longer have any meaning. place in his life. In Africa, without the comforts and distractions of wealth, Harry felt he could "get back into training." He needed a place to “shed the fat from his soul,” the fat that had accumulated over years of a sedentary, complacent life divorced from the realm of aesthetics. While on safari, Harry speaks of the "illusion" of a returning force. writing took its toll, but the real strength of will only really comes when the infection in his leg becomes severe and Harry has to face the fact that he will soon die. Harry begins writing again in segments of italicized text, separated from the narrative frame of. Harry and Helen in African, Harry mentally writes down those things that he wishes he could put on paper. So now it was all over, he thought, so now he would never have the chance to finish it (54). It is significant that Hemingway. combine these two sentences. Henry regrets not being able to write these stories because of the imposition of death – “to end it” however, it was his acceptance of impending death that freed him from his complacency and; his rationalizations and gave him.