Perseverance And Hope In Hemingway's The Snows Of Kiliman

The optimistic theme of perseverance and hope can be paralleled with another of Hemingway’s works, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, where the theme is rather pessimistic, focusing more on an idealized past, regrets, and death. In this short story, the main character Harry is nearing the end of his life after contracting gangrene while on a safari in Africa. As he acknowledges his impending death, he reminisces through flashbacks on his life and most importantly, his regrets, one of which being marrying his current wife, Helen. He constantly lies to Helen, expressing that telling her he loves her is “the familiar lie he made his bread and butter by.” (Hemingway 4) Harry then goes on to reminisce on a long lost lover he had met during his lifetime, saying that he “[missed] her so much it made him feel hollow sick inside.” (8) Harry further describes his regrets concerning women when he says that he

In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago sympathizes with the animals surrounding him as seen when Hemingway writes: “[Santiago] no mysticism about turtles although he had gone in turtle boats for many years...Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat on for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs.” (Hemingway 9)
Santiago also finds companionship within nature when he “looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company” (15) and said that he “was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean.” (7) The focus on nature within The Snows of Kilimanjaro, on the other hand, are seen when Hemingway goes into great detail about the surrounding area while still retaining a simple diction such as when he writes that “the sun was gone behind a hill and there was a shadow all across the plain and the animals were feeding close to camp.” (Hemingway