英美短篇小 说 全套课件.ppt

Summary Throughout the story, Harry vacillates between consciousness and unconsciousness. His conscious periods become shorter and shorter. Unconsciousness reveries of his past fill his mind and reveal a great deal about his past. The passages during the unconscious state are printed in italics except for the one very near the end in which Harry hallucinates about the plane coming to rescue him. Summary As it turns out, Harry’s illusion of the plane is just that: an illusion. In the end, Helen has Harry’s cot carried into their tent. Before long, she tries to rouse him but cannot. She becomes aware that his breathing has stopped, just as a hyena, a carnivore that feeds on dead animals, howls outside their tent. Theme An underlying theme in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” concerns the inroads that wealth can make on talent. Harry was once regarded as a promising author, a part of the expatriate movement that flourished in Paris following World War I. Hemingway, very much a part of this literary group, uses this story to articulate a great many of his own fears and feelings regarding his problems. The story has strong autobiographical elements, although the facts of Hemingway’s existence that it often suggests are not intended to be taken as accurate autobiographical accounts of his life. Theme—— Alienation and Nihilism Two themes common in Modernism are found in the story: alienation and Nihilism. Harry has lived a life of alienation, emotionally distant from his several wives and never identifying with or belonging to the wealthy society in which he has lived, courtesy of his most recent wife's money. As he dies, no spiritual faith sustains him. He has no thoughts of a Supreme Being or an afterlife. He thinks only of all he intended to write but did not write. He worships only the gift he squandered. Characters Compton Compton flies the plane that is meant to take Harry back to the city to save his life. He is confident and tries to make Harry feel better about his pre