The people he knew now were all much more comfortable when he did not work. He has lived in fear of death all his life, even been obsessed with it, and now that he is faced with it, he finds he is too tired to fight it. Thanks for the comment Ohnmar. Hemingway could well express the feelings of Harry because they both feared death in the event that they may have unfinished a work. Whether this despair is due to existential concerns or mere loneliness is up to the reader's interpretation. The Gauertal valley lies in Austria, where the war still loomed over Harry's life, as a deserting soldier wanders across his peaceful mountainside hermitage.
Interestingly, this infection in his leg that leads to an extreme feeling of numbness and emptiness is echoed in the way Harry feels about the stifling of his writing abilities and motivation by the domesticating influence of Helen and perhaps more importantly, the easy security and comfort afforded by wealth. Other Characters are briefly mentioned in the flashbacks that take place in the many locations where Harry has lived. As Harry lies on his cot remembering, he feels the presence of death and associates it with a hyena that is running around the edge of the campsite. Yet this cannot save him from the reality of his situation, as death again makes itself known to its next victim. Working up from the foot of his cot and settling onto his chest, the reader understands that it is the progress of the gangrene eating at him from the inside out. Harry overheard his fateful miscalculation of the safety of the mountain passage while riding the Orient Express, a glamorous railway that traveled across Europe, showing he lived in close proximity to key decision-makers at the time.
Helen fell in love with Harry because of what he wrote when he was in prison. The last line suggests that Harry has everything he needs to start writing again and it is just a matter of him actually doing it. It remains a mystery as to why the leopard must have scaled the great mountain. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. The hyena is another carrion eater that is probably the most despised of all African animals because of its filth and aggressive team efforts to destroy and to steal other animals wounded and suffering on the plain. The strength of his cruelty to Helen reflects the depth of his inner anguish at his inability to provide for himself.
In Paris, Harry met Tristian Tzara, a Romanian poet who founded the Dada movement Dadaism and who represented everything that Harry and Hemingway opposed. Which suggests hope for Harry. This character reminisces about his days as a writer in Paris, which coincides with Hemingway's days in Paris when he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly. The plane, of course, is another symbol. We see the men and women in each story struggling in their relationships, in different ways.
Suddenly, he sees the snow-covered top of Mt. He slipped into the familiar lie he made his bread and butter by. There is no time anyway, Harry says to himself, but it feels like he could fit it all in one paragraph if he could just get it right. Hemingway turned her down, but he wondered what the trip would have been like if he had gone, and the story was born from that notion. In most civilizations, God or God's promise of immortality resides on the highest mountain top: Mount Olympus for the Greeks, Mount Sinai for the Hebrews, Mount Fuji for the Japanese. Paul Verlaine French poet 1844-96 ; considered one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century.
You could not dictate the Parisian slums Harry had lived in, he thinks to himself, with their flower sellers, the old men and women always drunk, and runny-nosed children. This chaos and terror contrasts starkly with the poet Harry later sees at a cafe in Paris discussing literary theory. In the end, he stargazes about meeting his inner strength in the form of the legendary leopard and finally finds peace knowing that he has fought the good fight, he has finished his earthly race, and has kept his faith in the supreme. Harry recalls talking about this subject with Julian. Harry also redeems himself when he decides not to tell Helen that he never loved her, in essence he is thinking about someone else, just like he did with Williamson. When Harry looks at Kilimanjaro, he sees it as a symbol of truth, noble-mindedness, paradise, and purity. I've never loved any one else the way I love you'.
The final flashback is pivotal or life changing as there is a sense that Harry has realised that the path to redemption is through helping others and by being kind to them. As he weakens, Harry begins to fall into longer and more frequent flashbacks. He tells her he's been writing, but he got tired. The boys carry Harry over, and they manage to settle him in with his bad leg stretched out straight. But being sorry for the bad odor that his leg causes can be a way to apologize himself or maybe an irony upon his desire to be shot by his wife. Once again, he hides the imaginary encounter from Helen.
Africa was where he had been happiest in the good time of his life, so he had come out here to start again. To recognize and better observe the theme of the story, Hemingway employed symbolic characteristics transformed into things and animals. Helen's tone is constantly concerned or worried for Harry's well being. In the end, Harry believes that he has gone or is going to heaven in some ways achieving immortality, just like the frozen leopard in the epigraph despite the reality being that he has died on the plains of Africa. At first glance, the reader can realize, or not, the connection that this epigraph or the title has with the text. His main regret, of course, is that he has not reached his full potential as a writer because he has chosen to make a living by marrying wealthy women rather than memorializing his many and varied life experiences in writing.
Kilimanjaro: The summit of Kilimanjaro is an obvious symbol for Heaven, but also for success, which is what Harry hopes to obtain. So, they decided to go to Africa to have the possibility of writing again. She is obsessed with Jim Gilmore, the town blacksmith, and loses her virginity to him on the dock one chilly fall evening in a fashion that disillusions her about love. There are many minor Characters in this story. Helen asks more softly for him to try the broth, and he agrees. For Harry the journey is a reality, he believes that he is in the plane with Compton and that he is flying over the summit of Kilimanjaro.