you know, those things that look like

This is a paper about Ernest Hemingway's short stories The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1938?), Hills like White Elephants (1927), Cat in the Rain (1923?), The Killers (1927) and A Clean Well-Lighted Place (1933). However, to understand Hemingway and his short stories I find it necessary to take a brief look at his life and background first. It is not easy to sum up Ernest Hemingway's adventurous life in a few paragraphs, but I've tried to focus on the most important things before I started on the analysis of the five short stories.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in oak Park, Illinois, July 21st 1899, and committed suicide July 2nd, 1961. In his lifetime Hemingway managed to write some of the best known novels of our century, including books such as The Sun Also Rises, (1926) A Farewell to Arms (1929), Death in the Afternoon (1932) and For Whom the Bells Toll (1940). Hemingway's first published work was Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923) and then In Our Time (1924), before his fame grew with the public

When analyzing the story, much focus can be put on the failures of Harry. His failures to write, his failures as a man, a husband and a hunter. Harry and his wife ended up in the unfortunate position after Harry had an accident on their hunting trip, and wounded his leg. The leg has been infected and Harry is slowly dying. As he is dying Harry contemplates his life and all the things he didn't do, write or say in his lifetime. At his deathbed Harry find himself at the base of the mighty Kilimanjaro mountain, the highest point in Africa. He is looking up at the snow-covered top of the mountain, and at the end, as he passed away, he dreams that he reaches the top. Obviously the mountain plays a significant role in the story, and this is also shown in the title. In his death dream, Harry dreams that this is where he is headed, but the reader leaves Harry in an indeterminate state and returns to the world of the living, were in fact Harry has died in his bed.

The leopard, even if it is only seen in the opening paragraph of the story, is a symbol of what Harry wishes he was. It's presence is important throughout the story. In the opening paragraph, the reader is told the legend of the leopard carcass found at the top of Kilimanjaro. This leopard, it seems, was seeking the summit for some unknown reason. The leopard gives the reader associations of grace, speed, strength, courage, and dignity. It is an animal that acts with purpose, with lightning speed, and with accuracy. In this story, the leopard symbolizes all of these qualities, lacking in Harry

Cat in the Rain is also a story about a couple. The couple, elderly and probably wealthy, is on holiday in Italy. The woman sees a cat caught out in the rain and wants to go downstairs and "save" it. When she gets down to the cat, the animal is gone. However, the hotel-keeper comes to her rescue and later gets the cat in and brought up to their room.

http://members.aol.com/Mwilson311/Hemingway/biography.htm, visited November 13, 1998

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 5228
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page double spaced)