The Snows Of Kilimanjaro And Death Of A Ball Turret Gunner

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Have you ever seen a movie or television show where the setting or weather has no impact on the story at all? The use of weather in any work, including written, has a major impact on the feel and overall meaning of a work. Two such works are “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway, and “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell. At first glance these two works seem to have little in common, one is a short story, the other a poem; one is written about a man who has contracted gangrene and is close to death, the other about fighting in World War II. There is one idea that is shared between these two however, and that is the use of weather, primarily the cold, to impart different meanings on the works. Weather is a powerful tool …show more content…

Although it is a short poem, “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” uses cold in a literal sense with the narrator being freezing while flying miles above the earth and in a figurative sense with the cold being associated with isolation both from his mother and the people around him. These two works use weather to help describe the feelings associated with life and death; they are similar in this …show more content…

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” uses snow in such a way as to relate to death, and salvation, but the major emphasis being on the salvation and ascension of Harry. The loss that Harry recalls during times of extreme cold such as the bombing of the train, bring on great sadness; but this sadness is contrasted heavily by the indication that Harry is going to heaven which is at the top of Kilimanjaro, much in the same way that the Jewish use Mount Sinai as their portrayal of heaven on Earth. Conversely, “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” uses the cold for only one thing, to increase the impact and chilling effect of what war does to people. The narrator is stripped away from the warm love of his mother, and thrust into one of the most dangerous occupations of the war, which had one of the lowest survival rates. Miles above the earth, freezing inside a Plexiglas bubble, cut off from even the people in his own aircraft, one cannot help but feel pity for the

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