SOURCE: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro': Another Look at Theme and Point of View," in The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. LXXXV, No. 4, Autumn, 1986, pp. 351-59.

In the following essay, Herndon reevaluates thematic and structural aspects of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro, " asserting that Harry does achieve moral redemption at the conclusion of the story.

In the long-running critical debate about the resolution of Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," a number of critics have maintained that Harry's dream of flight at the end of the story—at the end of his story, at any rate—is the self-indulgent delusion of a failure. Others, like Max Westbrook, for instance, insist that the dream flight to Kilimanjaro, the Masai "House of God," signifies a moral triumph [in the Texas Quarterly, Winter 1966]. Westbrook sees Kilimanjaro as "an appropriate image of Harry's moral achievement," which consists in his coming to an honest awareness of his...