The key to understanding Hemingway's work is to view it as a broad allegory on the sociopolitical environment in which he lived and wrote. On a purely literal level, one could view "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" as a campy yet endearing story of one man's search for the perfect ski slope (Kilimanjaro) or the perfect hunting trip(Macomber). But if you look at the mountain as, say, the U.S. economy and the elephant as, say, the gold standard and Francis' wife as, say, the War Powers Act, the story takes on an entirely different meaning. And the ancient sherpa's diatribe on the Securities Exchange Commission becomes an extremely poignant and brilliantly crafted fulcrum on which to balance the story's central metaphor.