The Snow of Kilimanjaro

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A person reaches spiritual salvation through life’s process of self-realization. To achieve self-realization one must first establish goals and then implement the tasks to successfully achieve these goals. However, a person’s success in life depends on the paths they choose to accomplish their goals. In Ernest Hemmingway’s story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, he depicts the main character’s self-realization of an unsuccessful life and this leads to regrets during the grieving stage of their death. Grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Some people reach acceptance going through all the stages, some skip stages, and some never reach acceptance because they are deeply rooted in other stages. Throughout the story, Earnest Hemmingway depicts his main character, Harry, in these different stages of grief. Eventually by the end of the story, Harry reaches acceptance through self-realization and therefore achieves spiritual salvation.
In the beginning of The Snow of Kilimanjaro, Harry predominately displays the anger stage of his grieving process. According to Earnest Hemmingway in The Snows of Kilimanjaro,
So now it was all over, he thought. So now he would never have a chance to finish it. So this was the way it ended in a bickering over a drink. Since the gangrene started in his right leg he has no pain and with the pain horror had gone and all he felt now was a great tiredness and anger that this was the end of it. For this, that now was coming, he had very little curiosity. For years it had obsessed him; but now it meant nothing in itself. (Baym, 828)

This quote shows how Harry’s realization of death from his infectious disease causes him to feel disconnected from society and angry wit...

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...t to feel regret, denial, anger, and depressed about dying because Harry realizes death is coming. Harry wants to feel happiness during his last moments alive.
The Snow of Kilimanjaro depicts the grieving process of death in all of the different stages. By encountering all the different stages of grief, Harry finds acceptance with dying and this allows him to achieve spiritual salvation. Although Harry’s spiritual salvation does not appear to be a religious salvation with God, He comes to peace by the end of his reflection of his life and achieves acceptance of death by the end of the story. This allows Harry to enjoy his last moments alive doing what he loves before he passes.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. "The Snow of Kilimanjaro." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2012. 826-42. Print.

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