Barnhisel holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature and currently teaches writing at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He has written a number of entries and critical essays for Gale Group's Short Stories for Students series. In the following essay, Barnhisel examines Hemingway's styles of narration and how they explain Harry.

Although it is perhaps the least characteristic of any of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is often considered to be Hemingway's finest accomplishment in the genre of short fiction. Moreover, most critics agree that Harry, the protagonist of the story, is Hemingway's self-portrait, and this makes the story doubly interesting for students of this giant of twentieth-century American writing. The story recounts the death of a failed writer and a man who is at least unpleasant, if not actually the "bad man" that many of his critics have accused him of...