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The protagonist of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Harry has embarked on a safari in Africa in the hopes of reinvigorating his physical and creative spirits so that he can begin writing again. However, plagued by a wound that has become gangrenous, Harry must contend with his approaching death and the possibility that he may never complete the stories he always intended to write. As he reflects on his past, and the choices that have led to his comfortable but dull marriage to Helen, it becomes clear that Harry has traded the difficult but stimulating circumstances of his working-class youth—during which he was a prolific and talented writer—for a financially lucrative but emotionally lifeless existence.
Harry’s slow death operates on two different levels: the literal and the metaphorical. While Harry is actually dying from gangrene, his physical decline symbolizes his creative and moral decline. For years, Harry has chosen wealth, comfort, and the companionship of a woman he doesn’t love over facing the strong, complicated emotions tied to his past and confronting his human experiences via the written word. For Harry, to avoid writing is to avoid living – in choosing to give up on his creative life, he signs away his literal life as well. By the time he realizes his mistake, it is too late to reverse his inevitable decline. The death of his soul and the death of his creativity have led to his actual, literal death.
Harry’s anticlimactic and unnecessary death mirrors the disappointing results of his writerly pursuits. Too lazy to treat his wound or to try to write, Harry is ultimately responsible for the pathetic downward spiral of his talent, his marriages, and his life. Of course, this decline would have been avoidable had Harry chosen to value creativity and stimulation over wealth and comfort. Additionally, the fact that Harry survived the horrors of World War I only to die from an insignificant scratch on the knee while vacationing with his wealthy wife further exhibits the extent of his decline. The peak of his life, when he was both creatively fulfilled and physically indestructible, is long over. However, Harry’s death also creates the possibility for renewal. When he is transported to the pure peaks of Kilimanjaro, Harry comes face-to-face with a level of divinity and cleanliness that was unachievable in his mortal life.
