SOURCE: "Two Views of Kilimanjaro," in The Grotesque: An American Genre and Other Essays, Southern Illinois University Press, 1962, pp. 119-24.

In the following essay, O'Connor places "The Snows of Kilimanjaro " within the context of the genteel tradition in American literature.

In the early 1850's, Bayard Taylor made a trip to Africa, traveling in Egypt, Soudan, and Ethiopia. He wrote a book about his travels entitled A Journey to Central Africa, or, Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile. He also wrote a number of poems, including one called "Kilimanjaro." In the early 1930's, Ernest Hemingway was hunting in Africa. Out of his experiences came The Green Hills of Africa, as well as "The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." It is merely fortuitous, of course, that two American writers, almost a century apart, chose to write about...