Although Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf belong to the same literary period, modernism, their styles are quite different. Modernism is a literary period characterized by a variety of ideas, styles, techniques, theories and trends resulting from the social and cultural reality of the time. Thus, we can find many schools or artistic movements in the same period, such as impressionism, symbolism and expressionism. If Hemingway can be considered a representative of symbolism, Woolf is a major impressionist writer. A thorough analysis of Hemingway's "Snows of Kilimanjaro" and Woolf's "String Quartet" can help us illustrate the differences of these authors in terms of style, method or technique, and theme. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” Ernest Hemingway's style is marked by his use of symbols of associations (e.g. the snow, the summit, the scavengers and the leopard) and by the use of the omnipresent third person narrative device, as well as the insertion of dialogues and flashbacks. The theme of this short story is ethical; in the words of Carlos Baker, the story deals with "the achievements and loss of moral manhood" (Weeks 118), or spiritual death and rebirth. The Snows of Kilmanjaro is the account of the last days of a dying author, Harry, in a camp near the edge of the Tanganyika plains. He is a failed artist, who procrastinated writing because he was too lazy, and who traded his artistic talent for luxury, money, and comfort. Marrying a rich woman without loving her is what caused Harry's spiritual death; and now that his physical death is near, he tries to make up for all the opportunities he lost. Hemingway uses simple, clear words and sentence structures, but he conveys meanings through symbols. From the beginning, we are confronted with one of the most important symbols in the story, the frozen carcass of a leopard, which represents all the ideals Harry was never able to achieve. The next symbols are the vultures flying "obscenely" around their heads because of Harry's rotten leg. These birds of prey are generally linked to death since they are carrion eaters; in the same way, the presence of the hyena in this story is linked to spiritual death and to Harry's personality: living from others. Other symbols are snow and the summit of Kilimanjaro, which are closely related to each other. Snow is a recurring image in Harry's first flashback: "It was one of the things he saved for writing, along with, in the morning at breakfast, looking out the window and seeing snow." snow on the mountains in Bulgaria and Nansen's secretary asking the old guy if it was snow. Snow has always been associated with episodes in his life that signified the loss of opportunities for writing and artistic expression. Now that he is running out of time, he sees the snows of Kilimanjaro as a symbol of forgetting. Finally, the top of the mountain symbolizes the gates of heaven, peace and perfection. For Harry, reaching the top of the mountain means accomplishing his works as an artist and regaining his lost morality, or as I already mentioned, it means Harry's spiritual rebirth, because the realization of his ideals guarantees his access to the heaven. Virginia Woolf is well known. for its obscure narrative style, which is clearly illustrated in "The String Quartet" by means of sensory impressions, stream of consciousness, discontinuity and... 1962.