Male’s Ambivalence Towards Female in Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Abstract

In The Snows of Killimajaro, Hemingway’s male characters deserve both cohesive as well as repulsive approach towards female characters. When we delve into the historicity and context of the text, Hemingway’s prime time 1920s and 30s marks the transitional phase of the women’s movement when feminists were raising a deafening voice against patriarchy. Hemingway, being stirred by the wave of the feminist movement of early twentieth century (1920s-30s), delineated his male characters become the victims of too many thought with deceptive simplicity. His characters’ ambivalence is not the product of the psychological bent of their own but the ripple-effect of the resistance ensued by the feminist movement. Hemingway, in his short stories, leaves no stone unturned to project the ambivalence of his male characters: Nick, Kreb, Harry, George and Others who are the representative of the then society infected by the blow of feminism. His male characters can neither articulate and impose the traditional patriarchal norms, values and etiquettes upon the females nor can they explicitly manifest their principle to be maintained by them. These stories also divulge the male-female relationship sustained under duress.