英美短篇小说Unit17TheSnowsofKilimanjaro课件

1、Unit 17 The Snows of KilimanjaroErnest Hemingway第1页，共28页。Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway (1899 1961) , American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely pub

2、licized life. His succinct and lucid prose style exerted a powerful influence on American and British fiction in the 20th century.第2页，共28页。Hemingways Writing YearsThe writing of books occupied Hemingway for most of the postwar years. He remained based in Paris, but he traveled widely for the skiing,

3、 bullfighting, fishing, and hunting that by then had become part of his life and formed the background for much of his writing. His position as a master of short fiction had been advanced by Men Without Women in 1927 and thoroughly established with the stories in Winner Take Nothing in 1933. Among h

4、is finest stories are “The Killers,” “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” At least in the public view, however, the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929) overshadowed such works.第3页，共28页。“The Hemingway Code”Hemingways characters plainly embody his own values and view

5、 of life. The main characters of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls are young men whose strength and self-confidence nevertheless coexist with a sensitivity that leaves them deeply scarred by their wartime experiences. War was for Hemingway a potent symbol of the wor

6、ld, which he viewed as complex, filled with moral ambiguities, and offering almost unavoidable pain, hurt, and destruction. To survive in such a world, and perhaps emerge victorious, one must conduct oneself with honour, courage, endurance, and dignity, a set of principles known as “the Hemingway co

7、de.” To behave well in the lonely, losing battle with life is to show “grace under pressure” and constitutes in itself a kind of victory, a theme clearly established in The Old Man and the Sea.第4页，共28页。Writing StyleIn striving to be as objective and honest as possible, Hemingway hit upon the device

8、of describing a series of actions by using short, simple sentences from which all comment or emotional rhetoric has been eliminated. These sentences are composed largely of nouns and verbs, have few adjectives and adverbs, and rely on repetition and rhythm for much of their effect. The resulting ter

9、se, concentrated prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable of conveying great irony through understatement. Hemingways use of dialogue was similarly fresh, simple, and natural-sounding. The influence of this style was felt worldwide wherever novels were written, particularl

10、y from the 1930s through the 50s.第5页，共28页。Modern receptionA consummately contradictory man, Hemingway achieved a fame surpassed by few, if any, American authors of the 20th century. The virile nature of his writing, which attempted to re-create the exact physical sensations he experienced in wartime

11、, big-game hunting, and bullfighting, in fact masked an aesthetic sensibility of great delicacy. He was a celebrity long before he reached middle age, but his popularity continues to be validated by serious critical opinion.第6页，共28页。Ernest Hemingway bibliographyNovels(1926) The Torrents of Spring(19

12、26) The Sun Also Rises(1929) A Farewell to Arms(1937) To Have and Have Not(1940) For Whom the Bell Tolls(1950) Across the River and into the Trees(1952) The Old Man and the Sea(1970) Islands in the Stream(1986) The Garden of EdenNonfiction(1932) Death in the Afternoon(1935) Green Hills of Africa(196

13、2) Hemingway, The Wild Years(1964) A Moveable Feast(1967) By-Line: Ernest Hemingway(1970) Ernest Hemingway: Cub Reporter(1985) The Dangerous Summer(1985) Dateline: Toronto(2019) True at First Light(2019) Under Kilimanjaro第7页，共28页。The Snows of KilimanjaroThis short story - written in 1938 - reflects

14、several of Hemingways personal concerns during the 1930s regarding his existence as a writer and his life in general. Hemingway remarked in Green Hills that politics, women, drink, money and ambition damage American writers. His fear that his own acquaintances with rich people might harm his integri

15、ty as a writer becomes evident in this story. The text in italics also reveals Hemingways fear of leaving his own work of life unfinished.第8页，共28页。In broader terms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro should be viewed as an example of an author of the Lost Generation, who experienced the world wars and the war

16、 in Spain, which led them to question moral and philosophy. Hemingway, in particular, found himself in a moral vacuum when he felt alienated from the church, which was closely affiliated with Franco in Spain, and which he felt obliged to distance himself from. As a result, he came up with his own co

17、de of human conduct: a mixture of hedonism and sentimental humanism.第9页，共28页。Analysis of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”SummaryThemeCharactersSymbolsStyleModernism第10页，共28页。SummaryAs the story opens, the speaker, later identified as Harry, is proclaiming that something is painless. It soon reveals that H

18、arry and his wife, Helen, are encamped somewhere near Mount Kilimanjaro, which, at nearly twenty thousand feet, is Africas highest mountain. An epigraph at the beginning of the story, before the action is under way, describes the snow-capped mountain, mentioning that the name for its western summit

19、is translated from the local Masai language as the House of God.第11页，共28页。SummaryExtensive dialogue at the beginning of the story reveals that the speakers, husband and wife, have a combative relationship. Harry has ceased to be in love with Helen, although she adores him. In Harrys dialogue, one qu

20、ickly detects a deep-seated underlying anger and a contempt for not just Helen but all women. Indeed, Harry feels and expresses guilt about the deterioration of his relationship with his wife, who has quite willingly put her considerable fortune at Harrys disposal. The rub is that the comfortable li

21、fe that Helen has provided seems to have robbed Harry of the motivation he needs to write. Harry and Helen have left their superficial rich friends behind in Paris, where they are pursuing their inconsequential lives. Harry toys with idea of writing about the idle rich, viewing himself as a sort of

22、spy in their territory.第12页，共28页。SummaryIt is soon revealed that Harry is on his deathbed, suffering from gangrene that is moving rapidly from his lower legs to other parts of his body. He and Helen, along with their African servant, Molo, are stranded in this remote part of Tanganyika because an in

23、ept driver failed to check the oil in their truck, causing it to burn out a bearing and become inoperable. Their only hope now is that a plane will land on their compound and fly Harry to a medical facility.第13页，共28页。SummaryThroughout the story, Harry vacillates between consciousness and unconscious

24、ness. 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

25、to rescue him.第14页，共28页。SummaryAs it turns out, Harrys illusion of the plane is just that: an illusion. In the end, Helen has Harrys 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

26、on dead animals, howls outside their tent.第15页，共28页。ThemeAn 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,

27、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 Hemingways existence that it often suggests are not intended to be taken as accurate autobio

28、graphical accounts of his life.第16页，共28页。Theme Alienation and NihilismTwo 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 whi

29、ch he has lived, courtesy of his most recent wifes 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.第17页，共28页。CharactersComptonCompton flies

30、 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 predicament. However, he exists only in Harrys dream.HarryHarry is the protagonist of the story. He is a writer and has had many experiences in Europe. He also very

31、 much enjoys big-game hunting. When the story begins, Harry is suffering from gangrene in his leg and he is dying in the African backcountry while waiting for a plane to take him to the city.MoloMolo is the African servant who serves Helen and Harry. He does very little in the story apart from bring

32、ing Harry whiskey and sodas.第18页，共28页。CharactersHelenHarrys wife Helen, also known as The Wife, remains unnamed until the end of the story, when a delirious Harry finally refers to her by name as he dies. After Harry reaches the summit of Kilimanjaro, the previous narrative voice resumes and again c

33、alls her simply the woman. Harry does not seem to love her, but he respects her to a certain degree for her skill with a gun. She comes from a wealthy family and Harry has contempt for that. She, on the other hand, cares for him greatly and tries to ease his suffering.第19页，共28页。SymbolsThe frozen leo

34、pard on the summit of Kilimanjaro is associated with death, immortality, and possibly redemption. The hyena and vultures are associated with illness, fear, and death.Kilimanjaro itself, though its role has sparked the most controversy among scholars and critics, seems associated with a sort of redem

35、ptive heavenly afterlife. Low-lying, hot plains areas are associated with difficult or painful episodes in Harrys life, including the situation in which he begins the story, and snowy mountainous areas are associated with his happier, more uplifting experiences, including his final imagined ascent t

36、o the top of Kilimanjaro. Gangrene, the rotting of the flesh, is symbolic of Harrys rotting soul.第20页，共28页。Style“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” is told in the third person and is rich with dialogue. In the italicized portions, which represent Harrys mental meanderings during his frequent periods of uncon

37、sciousness, the reader encounters a man who has wandered around Europe, has slept with a great variety of women, and has used other people shamelessly.第21页，共28页。StyleAlways, however, there is a nagging conscience in Harry that is closely related to the overall sense of loneliness that his exploits c

38、annot eradicate. This underlying guilt is much a part of the Harry-Helen interaction in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” It reveals a decency in Harry that on careful consideration eclipses his cynicism and self-serving behavior.第22页，共28页。ModernismThe story is very reflective of Modernism, as are many of

39、 Hemingways other works, such as his first two novels, The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms.第23页，共28页。ModernismThe structure of the narrative is Modernistic as Hemingway shifts back and forth from the traditional narrative form to the italicized passages that reveal the protagonists private thoughts and memories. Although the italicized passages are not written in first person or stream of consciousness, they are innovative and effective in exploring the psychology of Harrys inner life, his feelings and