Comparison and contrast between the Snows of Kilimanjaro and The death of Ivan Illych
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway and "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy are both excellent literary works that both deserve equal praise. Hemingway's story is about a regretful, wasted author named Harry who is lying on an African plain dying of gangrene. Ivan, the main character in Tolstoy's story, is dying of a incurable illness and reminiscing of his life and grieving over everything he did not do right. Both stories have equally effective points of view told in third person narrative. "The Death of Ivan Ilych" has more realistic conflicts than does "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" which has extremely powerful symbols. Both Hemingway and Tolstoy are successful in coupling these three elements with various themes to make each of the stories equally enjoyable. The point of view used in "The Death of Ivan Ilych" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a third person narrative, and has been used effectively in both stories. Each of the authors use a shifting form of narration that efficiently helps to depict both Harry's and Ivan's situation. In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," Ernest Hemingway's narrative changes from viewing the couple to inside Harry's mind through a series of italicized flashbacks and since
Hemingway and Tolstoy both describe various failure and regret issues the main characters must examine: Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Tolstoy uses the light to represent Ivan's afterlife. He lives by rich women and has been too lazy to follow his dream of being a writer: He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by Drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth and by snobbery, by pride and by prejudice, by hook and by crook. Tolstoy also explores an aspect of denial within Ivan making the use of conflict more effective than that used in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Ivan struggles with death and pain, and attempts to battle it away after realizing that he has not lived his life as he should of. (Tolstoy,156)Both points of view have aspects that simplify them, as well as aspects that create confusion. Tolstoy's writing is an interpretation of the occurrences in Ivan's life where as Hemingway's is more dialogue making it more challenging to interpret. Hemingway uses a narrative that is direct, most of which is dialogue, and through this the story unfolds: "I've been writing," he said. Tolstoy's symbols are effective but only have single representations. But what is the right thing?'" (Tolstoy,180). (Hemingway, 438)Harry's struggle concerns things he failed to complete while Ivan's is about all that he had accomplished through methods that were not morally right: "'Yes, it was all not the right thing,' he said to himself, 'but that's no matter. In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" the mountain represents the afterlife, a place of inspiration that Harry can go to achieve the characteristics of the leopard. Both are excellent symbols, when the hyena appears so does the rush of death and the sac represents the darkness of death.
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