SOURCE: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro': An African Purge," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. XXI, No. 3, Summer, 1984, pp. 223-27.

In the following essay, Johnston perceives Hemingway's story as an attempt to confront fears of literary failure.

The ethics of writing are fairly simple but very confusing to the public. The fact that a man lies, is cruel, betrays his wife, gets drunk, betrays his friends, has this or that odd or ugly sexual habit does not mean that he is not as honest in his writing as any Sir Galahad. No matter what lies he tells in his life he is an honest writer as long as he does not lie to or deceive the innermost self which writes.

—Ernest Hemingway

When Hemingway returned from his African safari in April 1934, he told reporters in New York that he planned to return to Africa as soon as he had...