《岂力马扎罗的雪》中真实性的分量毕业作品文档格式.docx

1、它主要讲述了一个作家在临死时回忆一生中未写作的片段和经历这一故事。由于故事结构的复杂性，现有文献中对主角的分析不一，以致产生了对主人公哈里多种不同甚至相反的评价。因此，本文尝试使用一种统一的视角检视主人公的个性特征。通过哈里作为观察者和作者这两种身份时的真实性来分别进行阐述。通过这一分析，本文厘清了现存的各种相反或相对的观点，并且得出结论，即作为观察者的哈里一直保持着他的真实性，而作为作家的哈里在死前完成了向真实性的转变。关键词：岂力马扎罗的雪；真实性；拖延AbstractThe Snows of Kilimanjaro is one of Hemingways most famous sho

2、rt stories. It is a story about a dying writer looking back on a lifetime of unwritten stories. Due to the complexity in the structure of the story, analyses of its main character Harry vary in existing literature, which leads to different, even sharply contrasting ways of evaluation. Therefore, thi

3、s article ventures to examine the protagonist in a unified point of view. This is achieved through looking at the character in the light of his authenticity both as an observer and as a writer. Through this examination, it clarifies various conflicting points of view that currently exists, and arriv

4、es at the conclusion that Harry is an authentic observer who has been transformed to an authentic writer before his death. Key words: The Snows of Kilimanjaro; authenticity; procrastinationContents Abstract II 1. Introduction: 1 2. The Psychological Weight of Authenticity 2 2.1 Harry as an Authentic

5、 Observer 22.1.1 To Face the Unfamiliar 32.1.2 To Face the Incongruous 42.1.3 To Face the Futility of Theorizing 5 2.2 Harry in his Struggle to be an Authentic Writer 62.2.1 Resistance from the Public 62.2.2 Resistance from Loved Ones 7 2.3 The Transition before Death 8 3. Conclusion 8 Bibliography

6、10 Acknowledgments 101. Introduction:The Snows of Kilimanjaro is one of Hemingways most famous short stories. The frame of the story is about a writer named Harry who was dying of gangrene on a remote plain of Africa.（Logsdon, 29） While on a safari with his girl friend, Harry received a slight wound

7、 which resulted gangrene in his leg, and with their truck broken down they were stranded, with little prospect of immediate help. Dying a slow but painless death, Harry called back to memory a lifetime of stories that he had postponed to write（Logsdon, 30） and realized that he would never have a cha

8、nce to write again. Through the reminiscence of the protagonist, Hemingway presents a montage of images recollected from his own past（Bonds, 132）, including his wartime experience, past love affairs, and life of men and women in the poor quarters of Paris. These accounts also form a concrete part of

9、 the story. This type of story-telling, which resembles the ancient style of “frame tale”, allows the author to integrate a vast amount of diversified “sub-stories” and scattered accounts into a fluent whole, following the flow of consciousness of Harry. But due to the set-up of the story, a confusi

10、on was created as to where to draw the line between the writer and the protagonist. And it is also not immediately clear to what extent can Harrys characteristics be attributed to his creator.The two different points of view, which separate and converge at different points with the development of th

11、e story, has lent a vagueness to the relationship between the character and the author. Different understandings of this particular relationship, or lack of concern of it, has led to differences of the overall interpretation in the philosophy of the whole story, which spans both the negative and pos

12、itive extremes of the same spectrum, and leads to disparity of interpretation in the smallest details.For instance, Mller described Harry as an “inauthentic self” that Hemingway is symbolically killing off.（Mller, 38） Stoltzfus regards Harry as a declining writer, and Hemingway, as Harrys creator, “

13、understands the flaws in both their lives.”（Stoltzfus, 218） According to Ibaez, Harry is a self-destructive writer who feeds on his own rotten and invented lies.（Ibaez, 105） In Li Yanan and Ou Lins point of view, however, Harry is “neither a hero nor a coward”（Li, 94） but a normal person at the merc

14、y of his painful memories imposed by his time.The discrepancy has led to disparity in interpretations on various levels. For example, Stoltzfus reasons that The Snows of Kilimanjaro is about “failure, bad faith and Hemingways recuperation of failure”.（Stoltzfus, 217-218） And the frame narrative is t

15、hus veiled with a negative atmosphere - “He is angry, he quarrels with his wife, he hallucinates, and he dies.”（Stoltzfus, 217） Mller described the central theme of Harrys flashbacks as “the problematic ideal of doing the right thing”（Mller, 35）. With this confusion it is relatively hard to pin down

16、 the philosophy that the story-teller holds. Therefore, the aim of this paper, is to try to clarify the tangle in the mixed points of view, by sticking with a single characteristic, authenticity, which shines through the recollected scenes as well as the frame narrative. Through this single point of

17、 view, it seeks to clarify the confusion created by the frame structure of the story and reach a new understanding about its protagonist. 2. The Psychological Weight of AuthenticityWaiting for his death to come on the African plain, Harry recollects a lifetime of stories which he had never written.

18、They include his memories about war, his love affairs and the life of men and women as he witnessed in the poor quarters of Paris which he used to live. Diversified as they are, they are usually bound together in separate “bundles” by a shared element. The first batch of these accounts, for example,

19、 is bound by a shared image of snow, from the snow that killed people to that which he skied on. There are even a frame story within the existing narrative frame a quarrel with his woman in Paris for him to put in other accounts of experience including the one about “poppy field horror”, which is to

20、 be discussed later. And the rest are introduced with reference to the main frame. For instance, when Harry was contemplating his own painless death, he remembered the officer Williamson who died a unbearably painful death. But what helps to achieve a sense of unity among the diversified themes, is

21、the value of authenticity（Mller, 36）, which means to see things as they are, and reject the temptation of theorizing where things are incomprehensible, or the inclination of bestowing meaning on things that are by nature absurd. 2.1 Harry as an Authentic Observer Within the narrative frame, a montag

22、e of images recollected from Hemingways own past were presented（Bonds, 132）. These accounts, written with extreme skillfulness, also form a concrete part of the story. They include Harrys memories about war, his love affairs and the life of men and women as he witnessed in the poor quarters of Paris

23、. What helps to achieve a sense of unity among the extremely diversified recollections, is the value of authenticity（Mller, 36）, which means the capability or willingness to see things as they are, and to reject the temptation of theorizing where things are incomprehensible, or to force meaning on t

24、hings that are by nature absurd. In this sense, Harry could be counted as an authentic observer of his time, as a close examination of the accounts would show. When the Great War broke out in the 1910s, it disrupted the normal order of life and brought death and horror into normal peoples lives, eve

25、n where they were the least expected. As the following examination of the detailed accounts will show, to be authentic means to face the unfamiliar, the incongruous and the failure of reason and the insecurities that they incur. 2.1.1 To Face the UnfamiliarThe out-broken of World War I disrupted the

26、 normal order of life and brought death and horror into normal peoples lives, even where it is the least expected. People began to see death, which used to be a mysterious subject, now juxtaposed with their dear friends, families, or whatever daily objects that gave one a sense of commonplaceness. A

27、nd the contrast was shocking as it was displayed in Hemingways account of poppy field horror which Harry experienced one night while leaving for Anatolia: That was the day hed first seen dead men wearing white ballet skirts and upturned shoes with pompons on them.Later he had seen the things that he

28、 could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.（Hemingway, 21）The image of “white ballet skirts” and “upturned shoes with pompons on them” conjures up different imaginations for different individuals, but only in rare cases will it be associated with the harsh image of a dead man. A vo

29、id of expectation was thus created and when the image registered the vision, the impact was immediate.It is common experience that when one is surprised or shocked, he will be unable to think or speak for at least a transient moment. That is often metaphorically described as “losing orientation” as

30、if people had for some reason stepped off the realm of familiarity and into the strangeness. Most will recover by “making sense of” what happened, but in this case, even realizing the strangeness of the picture does not help to put it into any existing mental category.Familiarity may be dull and con

31、tempt-breeding, but it also provides a sense of security and comfort. The unfamiliar quality of his experience, and the difficulty of re-orientation or integrating it into the old system of thinking is what makes it mentally disturbing, and therefore extremely hard to face. As a result, when Harry w

32、as back in Paris again he “could not talk about it or stand to have it mentioned”. The heaviness of truth had weighed him down. Hence the procrastination in writing them down, despite that they could have been extremely valuable and rare writing materials for a writer. 2.1.2 To Face the Incongruous Another characteristic of the accounts is the incongruity of reasoning they displayed in the place of the much more familiar a priori reasons. I