Snows Of Kilimanjaro Research Articles

The Search for the Absolute in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

CRITICISM THE SEARCH FOR THE ABSOLUTE IN HEMINGWAY'S "A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE" AND "THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO" Sam Bluefarb Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro ," express a Manichean split between an Absolute (or perfect) in which God or His equivalent is to be sought, and a world in which, if God is indeed dead, one must look for an Absolute which might fill the void of His loss. What has replaced lost faith in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is the older waiter's sense of despair—which in itself becomes a negative statement of the old faith, as expressed in the older waiter's recital of the Hail Mary in negative terms of nada. In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," Harry the writer, though he does not explicitly think of God, seems to have a need, as he lies dying of a gangrenous leg on the African plain, for an absolute value that would replace a God that may or may not have failed him, but which in any event has become irrelevant for him. That Absolute, for Harry, is the need—never fulfilled— to perfect himself as a writer. Both of these visions—the older waiter's in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and Harry's in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro''— demand a response; for both are challenges to sensibilities that deal with nearly identical questions: what replaces faith when the basis for faith has gone? And what replaces creative integrity when integrity itself has wasted away? In an article published in the Catholic World in early 1940, Hugh Allen takes Hemingway to task for not attaching himself to a religious faith —presumably Catholic—instead of listening to Gertrude Stein when "Miss Stein siphoned over to him her blind racial will [sic] not to believe."1 The rest of this article, appropriately if heavy-handedly entitled "The Dark Night of Ernest Hemingway," proceeds to exhibit an individual (Hemingway ) who is not only bereft of all religious feeling, but who denies all of the values that faith alone affirms. Certainly there are enough spiritual dark nights in Hemingway's work to suggest that Hemingway was not altogether unaware of the problem. Indeed, in much of the criticism of the past several decades there have appeared arguments which support the presence of "religious" elements in Hemingway's work, precisely because of that writer's preoccupation with nada, or what William James has called 1HUgIi Allen, "The Dark Night of Ernest Hemingway," Catholic World, CL (February 1940), 522. 4 RMMLA BuiXETTNMarch 1971 "world sickness." It is in these two stories that we see a longing for a way out of this impasse, the need to break through to some transcendent purpose —esthetic or religious—without which life seems to have little or no meaning. In "A Clean, Well-lighted Place" there is a split between an older waiter and a young waiter. This gap is catalyzed by the presence of an eightyyear -old patron of the café who wants to stay late into the night so that he might have, if we are to believe the older waiter, a "clean, well-lighted place" for the night. The young waiter impatiently shouts at the old man (who is deaf), "You should have killed yourself last week. . . ."* The old man, the reader discovers, had bungled an attempted suicide. In his own way, he had tried to find an absolute answer to his own absolute despair. But the young waiter cannot understand this. He is still too far back on the threshold of life, with his young wife waiting for him at home, to be able to sympathize with the old man. He has the impatience of the young. The young waiter's response to a condition of life is a contrast to the response of the old waiter. According to William James, healmy-mindedness— which the young waiter seems to possess in such abundance that it becomes a sickness in itself—is not as true a guide to the evils of life as a more melancholy outlook. Of this state of mind, James has said·. there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a...

The Search for the Absolute in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

The Search for the Absolute in Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro”: A Revaluation

When “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” first appeared in Esquire (August 1936), it attracted immediate attention. It was promptly reprinted (in Best American Short Stories of 1937) by Edward J. O'Brien, who, praising it in his preface, remarked: “Nothing is irrelevant. The artist's energy is rigidly controlled for his purpose.” Since then it has been anthologized many times, and now it is probably safe to say that, with the possible exception of “The Killers,” none of Hemingway's stories has enjoyed greater popularity than this one. Hemingway's own opinion was that it was “about as good as any” of his shorter works.In the last ten or fifteen years, however, “The Snows” has come in for considerable disparagement, mainly from the so-called New Critics and their followers. In 1945 Ray B. West, Jr., wrote in The Sewanee Review: “While I consider this story one of Hemingway's best … it is spoiled for me by the conventionality of its leading symbol: the White-capped mountain as the ‘House of God’.” In 1950 Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon, referring to it in The House of Fiction as a “magnificent failure,” complained that it lacked “dramatic force” and objected that the symbolism was not properly integrated with the action. And in 1956 William Van O'Connor characterized it as a “rather puzzling story” and expressed dissatisfaction with the ending.

Nostromo and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

Nostromo and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

Through Unknown African Countries The First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Lamu

THE region of Africa to the south of Eastern Abyssinia has been long regarded as of exceptional interest, both by the naturalist and the novelist. So early as 1847, when most geographers still believed that the snows of Kilima Njaro were a traveller's tale, and before Kenya had been seen by a European, Captain Short returned from the Juba, and asserted the existence of snow clad mountains away to the westward. According to the statements of some native traders to the court of Abyssinia, the bamboo forests of the same region were inhabited by tribes of dwarfs; and these reports were published by Captain Harris in 1844, long before the measurements by Schweinfurth, the skeletons sent home by Emin, and the discoveries of Stanley had called prominent attention to the pigmy races of Equatorial Africa. At a subsequent period, the late M. Abba die placed a great mountain in the same unvisited district, exaggerating its height, as he recently naïvely remarked, in the hope of calling attention to it. Suahili traders also reported the existence in this region of two great lakes, of which the larger was sometimes called Samburu, and at others was confused with Baringo; it was the hope of reaching this lake region that led to the expedition of Burton and Speke, which came to such a disastrous end at the landing-place near Berbera. The excitability of the Somali, and the fascination of the discoveries made in East Africa south of the equator, subsequently diverted attention from this region, and it was not until 1888 that the first Europeans reached it. Teleki and Höhnel then entered from the south, and found, as reported, that there were two great lakes: the larger was named by its discoverer Lake Rudolf, apparently on the principle of Oliver St. John's dedication of his memoirs to Cromwell, who, by persuading him to travel, had given him the leisure in which to write them. After Teleki's return, several attempts were made to reach the twin lakes from the north, along Burton's projected route. But it was not until 1895 that success was gained by the expedition described in this volume. Through Unknown African Countries. The First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Lamu. By A. Donaldson Smith, Hon. Member of Acad. Nat. Sci., Phil. Pp. xvi + 471, with illustrations and five-sheet map. (London: E. Arnold, 1897.)