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The title of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is named after the text’s primary image: the story uses snow-covered mountains as a literal representation of a symbolic or theoretical place of absolute perfection and cleanliness, which all humans try, likely in vain, to reach. In the text, the literal and the physical often have metaphoric and symbolic meanings as well—while mountains and high places are often equated with contentment and purity, plains and low places are signs of sickness, discontent, and evil. Additionally, Harry’s gangrenous physical state is literal—he really is dying of an infection—but it also reflects the state of his inner life. His “soul,” or inner self, is sickly and decaying, a truth mirrored by the infection spreading in his leg. Just as laziness and lack of concern keep Harry from treating his scratch with iodine, so too does it cause him to allow his emotional and creative life to fall into stagnation. While Harry wishes to blame Helen for his decline, he must admit that it was ultimately his responsibility to treat his wound, just as it was his responsibility to nurture his inner self by taking control of his life and finding the necessary environment and resources that would inspire creative exploration. In allowing himself to grow comfortable and passive, he ultimately loses both his symbolic life—his vitality, creativity, and passion—and his literal life.
When the story opens, Harry realizes the gangrene will likely end his life. Thus, he takes the opportunity to be honest with Helen about his lack of love for her and his discontentment with their relationship. In his inner monologue, he begins to reflect on the pivotal moments of his life. As we jump between Harry’s past and present, we slowly begin to piece together the narrative of Harry’s life, and the reasons why he’s given up on writing and found himself in a hopeless situation in Africa. The story’s meandering nature reflects how Harry must confront his life’s joys, regrets, and choices in preparation for his death.
The main regret of Harry’s life is that he has chosen wealth and comfort over love, challenge, and creativity. While luxury makes it easy to pretend otherwise, this choice has proven disastrous. Harry no longer has any will to live or write, which is evidence that he is “dead” on the inside. Additionally, Harry often associates Helen with a feeling of impending mortality, showing that he feels that Helen and her wealth are the source of this lifelessness. As Harry grows closer to death, his sense that he must write grows increasingly urgent; finally, a bit of life is coming back to Harry. He remembers the moments from his past that he associates with real living. Some of those memories are ones of freedom, love, and the beauty of the natural world, but others are traumatic and violent. Regardless, all these moments, whether they’re wonderful or devastating, are filled with energy, intensity, and humanity. This vivacity is missing from Harry’s current existence, and what he was hoping to find by returning to Africa.
Harry, as well as other characters in the text like Helen and Julian, search desperately for purity and absolution. This chase is ultimately futile and disappointing, as human life is inherently imperfect and impure. Perfection eternally evades them, as it eternally evades all of humanity. Harry wishes he had taken his writing more seriously and still lived the active, meaningful life he remembers from his youth, but he has succumbed to laziness and materialism. Helen thinks she has found genuine love and contentment with Harry, but must live in constant denial, knowing deep down that he does not truly love her or feel happy with her. Julian hopes that wealth is a pathway to purity and specialness but is destroyed when he discovers that this is not the case. Harry recognizes that some of his experiences and relationships from the past came close to purity and divinity, such as his time in a poor neighborhood in Paris, or when he gave his own supply of morphine to his gravely injured friend. But these experiences were fleeting, and his luxurious yet tedious current existence seems to have overridden any of the good and honest moments of his past. He is too far gone, having fully succumbed to an inner sickness that has eaten away at his soul. It is only through death that he can now achieve salvation. When Harry dies, he imagines himself to be taking a plane to the peak of Kilimanjaro, which is covered in blindingly white snow. This peak represents a place of complete and perfect purity, which Harry could not have reached in his mortal form. While the text does not explicitly state whether Harry is headed to an afterlife or if the peak is simply a symbol of Harry’s transition into death, Harry’s journey to the peak, and his realization of where he is actually going—into death, or into the beyond—does not seem to hold a negative or frightening connotation. Rather, the journey is one of adventure and awe.
The story returns to Helen in the final passage, who discovers Harry’s body. She can finally no longer delude herself about Harry’s physical and spiritual condition. When Helen sees the true extent of Harry’s ghastly wound in the final scene of the story, she is also seeing the extent of the rot in his soul. She had thought that Harry was a free, complete man, but the exposure of his true self is so hideous that she cannot look at it. While death may have transported Harry to an absolution or purity that was unreachable in his human form, his physical body bears the evidence of the decay and impurity of his former life.
