SOURCE: "The Leopard and the Hyena: Symbol and Meaning in The Snows of Kilimanjaro'," in The University of Kansas City Review, Vol. XXVII, No. IV, June, 1961, pp. 277-82.

In the following essay, Montgomery analyzes the significance and implications of the central symbols in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro. "

In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" Ernest Hemingway employs specific symbols—a mountain, a hyena, a leopard—to dramatize a favorite theme: heroic perseverance. But the symbols' relationship to the action of the story arouses questions of interpretation which are not easily resolved. It is the purpose of this [essay] to analyze the story to see just where the symbols, the leopard and hyena particularly, raise problems in the dramatic structure and the meaning of the story and to consider to what extent the problems are solved by the story.

The center of dramatic conflict in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is the...