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“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” uses conceptions of Africa common in white Western literature at the time. Described in the 19th century as “the dark continent,” Africa represented a vast place of heightened mysteries and dangers to Westerners. For hyper-masculine outdoorsmen like Hemingway, Africa was also seen as a land ripe for exploration and domination; while the continent had already been colonized by various European nations, individual men like Hemingway felt that Africa still provided an unmatched experience of adventuring in some of the globe’s remaining uncultivated wilderness. In The Idea of Africa, V. Y. Mudimbe further illuminates this Western presumption, saying that Westerners saw Africa as a mystical, almost sentient setting that was waiting to reveal “its being, its secrets, and its potential to a master who could, finally, domesticate it.” Thus, in much Western literature from the 19th and 20th century, Africa becomes an othered place that exists mainly to facilitate the self-actualization of Western individuals, who discover their power—or fail to discover their power—via their time in Africa. This sensibility certainly makes an appearance in “The Snows,” where Africa operates simultaneously as a remote, wild place of genuine danger where one can be wholly separated from civilization and as a place of mystical, otherworldly divinity where lost Western men might find a sense of deliverance and liberation that was unavailable to them on their home continents. This depiction of Africa may be seen as antiquated and colonialist by many contemporary critics.
