Writers and Writing in "Kilimanjaro"

The biography section on Ernest Hemingway in Norton’s Anthology of American Literature discusses two new themes that became apparent in Hemingway’s writing. According to the anthology, “The second new theme, obviously autobiographical, was that of the successful writer losing his talent in an atmosphere of success, celebrity, and wealth.” It goes on to say that this theme is conveyed in The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which also has some biographical elements, as Hemingway used to go on safaris in Africa.

Well, using these words as my guide, I went into the story on the lookout for this ‘fallen writer’ theme. While I could see a little bit of a fallen writer theme, I could see quite a bit of commentary on just writing in general. An example of this is the flashbacks of Harry, the writer and protagonist. At first, I found the flashbacks confusing and I wasn’t sure what purpose they served in the plot. Looking at them again, I found a recurring topic in many of the flashbacks. In one way or another, his writing comes up. In one particular flashback, there’s a neat paragraph on Harry as a writer, which says:

“He had never written any of that [the quarrels] because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change… He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.” (1992)

Harry seems to have this duty to write about the things he sees and experiences. Yet something stops him from writing it, whether it’s unwillingness to hurt people or a hesitation in presenting his stories, or whether it’s just getting caught up in his lifestyle. This is one example of how Harry is shown as a writer who fails not because his writing style is poor, but because other factors get in the way of his writing. Another flashback says, “He knew at least twenty good stories from out there [Paris] and he had never written one. Why?” (1996) Why indeed?

Another thing the anthology noted was how Harry blames his wife for his loss of talent, when deep down he acknowledges that it was his own fault. This and the idea of how you can lose your talent is expressed in the following paragraph:

“He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook.” (1988)

I found it interesting that Harry partly attributes his loss of writing talent to not using his talent. Basically, writing isn’t something that can be lost the same way a pencil can be lost-you can’t just accidentally drop it on a sidewalk and misplace it. Instead, you choose not to refine your craft, you choose to do something else instead or you simply get too busy. When you look at it that way, it actually seems quite easy to lose a talent for writing, which is a little scary to think about.

The theme of the writer in The Snows of Kilimanjaro makes me wonder: Are Harry’s reflections on writing also Hemingway’s personal thoughts on writing? It seems like it, but I could be totally mistaken.