Hemingway, Ernest. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro".

Summary

- on a shooting safari in Africa, Harry gets gangrene in his leg and waits for a plane to come

- his girlfriend Helen tries to comfort him, but Harry has already given up the hope

- Harry is a writer-to-be who is always putting off writing for the right time

- Harry blames luxury to have wasted his talent: he has spent all his life by living on rich women, including Helen

- the story is interrupted by a confused fragment of Harry's fictional plot or a memory of his own life: Austria, snow-bound gambler always putting off writing for the right time

- flashback to Helen's history: used to be married, with children, but her husband died, and to stop her excessive drinking and to abash her acute loneliness she started a new life with Harry

- a series of other fragments concerning Harry follows

- morning: the plane arrives, Harry is taken aboard and the pilot points to him the top of Kilimanjaro as they fly

- night: their sleep is disturbed by a hyena

- later at night Helen wakes up, checks Harry whose leg somehow got out of the cot he is sleeping in, but she cannot see him and calls first the native guide and then desperately Harry's name

Analysis

- a man deprived of the role of a provider is deprived of his masculinity at the same time

- the rich and the contortions of their lives