The Snows of Kilimanjaro

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Ernest Hemingway was born just before the 19th century in 1899. He was blessed with a upper middle-class family. He lived in the suburbs right outside of Chicago, a conservative suburb that tried to protect itself from Chicago’s liberal culture (Childhood). After Hemingway graduated high school, the United States entered World War I. Hemingway volunteered with the Red Cross in order to be an ambulance driver. He ended up in Milan. On his first day, a ammunition factory exploded near the young man. Hemingway had to carry dead and mutilated men to a makeshift morgue. This experience was his intense initiation into warfare. A few weeks later, a mortar shell exploded a few feet away from Hemingway. The explosion killed one Italian soldier, took the legs off another, and sent shrapnel up Hemingway’s entire leg. Hemingway had to walk to the medical tent. He chose to carry the suffering Italian solder and received the Italian Silver Star for Valor as a result of his bravery. Later in life he described the experience, “there was one of those big noises you sometimes hear at the front. I died then. I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew all around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead any more (Ernest Hemingway> World War I)." Hemingway provides a unique perspective on mortality due to his unique life. Throughout his The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories, Hemingway creates different vantage points through characters thinking about death, dying, and experiencing death in order to explore the emotions behind the loss of life/soul. The protagonists in Hemingway’s stories are victims. Many people have noticed that things happen to a Hemingway protagonist: they do not control things (Adair). In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Harry, the main character, is slowly dying

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