Voice, Imagery, Symbols and Theme in Snows of Kilimanjaro...

Voice, Imagery, Symbols and Theme in Snows of Killamanjaro The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a short story by Ernest Hemingway, is a brilliant study of a mans final hours precluding death. The story centers around Harry and his wife, waiting for a plane to come and take him to a doctor or hospital. Thus begins a stream of passages that takes the reader along with Harry while he drifts in and out of consciousness, moving from one life to the next. The obvious theme is death and dying, but the home theme is Harrys return to his past, and his journey to the present. Hemingway uses animal imagery in the story to reflect the dying theme, and to show two distinct sides of Harry, and his passing from life to death . The story opens with†¦show more content†¦Theyve been there since the day the truck broke down. Todays the first time any have lit on the ground. He then changes direction, as he accepts the dying phases, when he describes the zebra, white against the green of bush. The was a pleasant camp under big trees against a hill, with good water, and close by, a nearly dry water hole where sand grouse flighted in the mornings. In this passage he has become the other side of Harry, the side that is reflecting his passing life. When his wife goes off to kill a piece of meat for dinner, it causes him to think about their life together, a looking back at this present/past that he is just now living. His life with her was a contradiction between lying and love, as are his dying thoughts, and you can see his struggle. Now if this was h ow it ended, and he knew it was, he must not turn like some snake biting itself because its back was broken. It wasnt this womans fault. If it had not been she it would have been another. If he lived by a lie he should try to die by it. Again to describe the creeping of death the hyena enters: While it grew dark they drank and just before it was dark and there was no longer enough light to shoot, a hyena crossed the open on his way around the hill. Hemingway has a lyrical and musical voice. His shifting fromShow MoreRelatedThe Struggle of Life and War in Ernest Hemingway’s Writing 1071 Words   |  5 Pagesreader’s mind with the grievous effects of war and loss. Hemingway uses vivid word choices, simple sentence structure and coherent dialogue, as well as life experiences, to create universal novels, encompassed in epic love stories filled with symbols and themes hidden within his prose, that illustrate the tragic nature of life during the war. In his acclaimed novel, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway depicts the story of a soldier in World War I, a vicarious parallel to his own experiences, struggling to