but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it. . . . How when he thought he saw her outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman who looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. (Hemingway 12)

Here we not only learn that Harry regrets not making it work with a woman from his past, but we experience his thought process as he realizes he regrets this. This allows the reader to really think about life, death, and regret on a deeper level than if Harry’s regret was just plainly stated.

Hemingway also uses the stream of consciousness to prompt the reader to reflect on the nature of consciousness itself. This story shifts between Harry’s imagination and Harry's consciousness in the present. Hemingway’s use of stream of consciousness connects these states, keeping the story fluid while examining different dimensions of space and time. For example, consider when Harry remembers his favorite spots in Paris in detail. He recalls things his neighbors used to say when he is abruptly interrupted and asked if he wants broth. Then he slips back into his thoughts again.

No, he had never written about Paris. Not the Paris that he cared about. But what about the rest that he had never written? What about the ranch and the silvered gray of the sage brush, the quick, clear water in the irrigation ditches, and the heavy green of the alfalfa. The trail went up into the hills and the cattle in the summer were shy as deer. The bawling and the steady noise and slow moving mass raising a dust as you brought them down in the fall. (17)

Here we see how stream of consciousness is used to transport Harry throughout his past. He relived the Paris streets and scenes, and now he is reliving his time on his friends' ranch. Hemingway is able to smoothly switch between past and present, city and country, all through this smooth way of writing. But perhaps the most significant example of this takes place when Harry flies above Mt. Kilimanjaro in his mind:

Then they began to climb and they were going to the East it seemed, and then it darkened and they were in a storm, the rain so thick it seemed like flying through a waterfall, and then they were out and Compie turned his head and grinned and pointed and there, ahead, all he could see, as wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun, was the square top of Kilimanjaro. And then he knew that there was where he was going. (22)

Hemingway does not italicize this last journey of Harry’s, making the reader initially unsure if this is imaginary or actually occurring. This is the story’s ultimate exploration of psychological state, as it examines the final moments of a person’s consciousness.

In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway, the story's action alternates between the present and the past. As the story begins, Harry and his partner, Helen, are stranded in Africa and are waiting for a rescue plane. Harry is dying of gangrene from an infected cut. Harry and Helen converse for a while, and then Harry says, "I'm tired."

After that, a passage in italics follows. This and subsequent italicized portions of the story represent Harry's rambling thoughts or dreams as he rests or sleeps. In these sections, he remembers previous momentous occasions in his life, such as his travels in Europe, helping a deserter, and writing a letter to his first love. These sections are hard to follow because they pour out as reminiscences without much context. When each section of flashback ends, the current action of the man and woman stuck in Africa resumes. This pattern reflects the process of dying where conscious moments are interspersed with unconscious or semi-conscious periods.

This alternating structure allows Hemingway to pull off the surprise ending of the story. Because the section where the plane shows up is not italicized, readers believe it represents the current action taking place in Africa. Only when that scene breaks and the next scene begins with Helen sleeping does the reader realize that the previous section occurred in Harry's mind as he was dying. The final scene is the current reality; Helen discovers that Harry has passed away.

Although somewhat confusing to the reader, the stream-of-consciousness sections add more depth to Harry's character by revealing his backstory and personality. They also set up the final surprise that blurs internal reflection and external reality.