18 Foot Marlin

The Old Man and The Sea, is a tale of an old man named Santiago who is a fisherman. He hasn’t had any luck with fishing, resulting in the other town members viewing him as a lame old man. A boy who used to fish with him inspires to change up his usual fishing tactics resulting in him catching a great huge fish. After fighting the fish for a couple days in his tiny boat he ties it to the side, headed for shore. On the way in sharks eat his entire catch leaving a skeleton to show for his work. The reader can see a clear metaphor painted by Hemingway. The fish

“He did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back had almost passed pain and into dullness that he mistrusted.”(74) Once both the fish and Santiago had reached the breaking point of conflict the story seemed to slow down in time to exemplify the adverse conditions that both characters were suffering from. The old man proves himself worthy of personal suffering with the cuts and scars on his hands and back along with all of the pulling and slipping the cords had upon his fragile body. Hemmingway shows in a big way how an out of proportioned conflict with an old fisherman and an 18 foot long marlin helps to magnify the significance of Santiago searching for his rebirth to manhood. With constant abstraction describing the fish and the sea in relation to brotherhood create interesting questions for Santiago to ponder. His rationalization for his fishing is that he was born to do it. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (103) Hemmingway proves that this fish represents all of Santiago’s built up tension to total the size of a gigantic marlin that is perceived as devastating but not unconquerable. The old man’s hopes and aspirations can overcome the adversity of the marlin’s size, along with the conditions of the old, hungry, and exhausted fisherman. Through outright suffering Santiago achieves a goal above his previous manhood by combating pain and

Another important aspect of Santiago’s personality is his optimism and resilience. Although not associated with all transcendentalists, the ability to view events in a positive light is very important for a Transcendentalist to possess. Thoreau describes this attribute as being the way in which we see the beauty all around us, by taking the bad and viewing it in a positive manner. Santiago does exactly this by always accepting the hand he is dealt. After days out at sea in a very painful position, he states, “He did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back had almost passed pain and gone into a dullness that he mistrusted. But I have had worse things than that, he thought. My hand is only cut a little and the cramp is gone from the other. My legs are all right. Also now I have gained on him in the question of sustenance.” (Hemingway 74). Santiago feels that his injuries are not important, as he has experienced worse pain and what is more important to him at the time is catching the fish. Later in the book, after he finally catches the huge fish, it gets eaten by sharks on his way back to shore. Unlike a typical

In the novella, The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is an unlucky fisherman who has not caught anything in 84 days.  Yet he sets out alone on the 85th day to try again.  For three days he struggles with a large marlin which he finally kills; but, despite his best efforts, he loses the fish to repeated shark attacks.

In the novel, one was able to tell of the courage it took to kill the marlin. One can contrast this with Santiago’s killings of the sharks, which took little to no courage to do.

In the story The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, there is an old fisherman named Santiago who lives in a small village in Cuba. The story takes place in the Gulf Stream of Mexico which is the place the old fisherman fishing on his boat. He has not caught a fish in eighty-four days and become an unlucky man. Manolin, a young boy who is his partner has been going to another boat because of his parent's wishes. The old man decides to go to the sea to catch a fish. Finally, a huge marlin bite the hook, but he cannot pull it on the boat because the marlin is too strong. He struggles with the marlin for three days in the middle of the ocean. That marlin is the largest marlin he has ever seen. After he wins the battle, he puts it on his boat,

“Failure will never overtake [him] if [his] determination to succeed is strong enough” (Mandino). An unwillingness to fail reveals itself in The Old Man and the Sea, a literary fiction by Ernest Hemingway, relates the hills and valleys of a Cuban fisherman’s adventure. Throughout the novel, Santiago, the main character, displays his determined spirit when capturing the marlin and fighting sharks. Hemingway use several symbols throughout his novella, including the old man’s faithful fishing line and the ravenous sharks that attack the marlin.

Hemingway personifies the sharks to counteract the Marlin after being killed, as their presence of stalking the Marlin tests Santiago’s diligence. In the story, Santiago’s industrious efforts pay off, as he attains the long awaited Marlin. Far from home, the old man makes the treacherous return to society, shortly confronting numerous sharks, all for which he doesn't respect comparative to the Marlin. When two sharks begin attacking, Santiago shares his adverse notion towards the sharks as “They would hit a man in the water, if they were hungry, even if the man had no smell of fish blood nor fish slime on him” (108). Furthermore, the old man's depiction of the sharks delivers as a connotation of their lack of pride, as they feed upon what Santiago’s diligence caught. As far as his efforts go, he returns to the favela with nothing but a skeletal shadow of what was, however Santiago feels his journey was not one wasted, more so a figurative paramount of respect and patience. Although, the sharks took what they could from Santiago’s pride, he stuck to what was important deeming the sharks actions invalid. In society sharks have become the lower end of the stick, and I have myself, understood that I have my own sharks. As for me, my sharks come in many external and internal forms, however my greatest shark is those who doubted my ability to succeed. When I suffered from

The protagonist, Santiago, fights the elements heroically, only to lose all but the fish’s bones to sharks. This book relates to his love of nature and the outdoors and is also one of the main focus points in his writing themes. The Old Man and the Sea is characteristic of Hemingway’s fiction, featuring compressed action, and symbolism (Krstovic 2009, vol. 117). Hemingway stresses Santiago’s heroism through subtle allusions to Christ. The Old Man and the Sea is widely considered one of the most masterfully wrought tales in American fiction. The Old Man and the Sea has been viewed by people on its most basic level as a story of one man’s courage and, by extension, of all human quests and constant struggles with nature. Nature, symbolized in one form by the fish, is not a malignant force, but one that must nevertheless be respected for its power. Hemingway's use of symbols — the marlin’s sword is as long as a baseball bat, the sharks’ teeth are like human hands, Santiago’s hand, holding the fishing line, is “as tight as the gripped claws of an eagle” — highlights another theme: How all things in nature are interconnected (Malik 2015,

Over and over again he is remarked to be a strange old man, and he himself is the one to glorify that. He seems to struggle with the fact that he must prove himself to the other fisherman who mock him and believe him to be a fallen hero. He sets off to sea in his boat one day, but what he does not know that it will be the three most tiring days of his life. He first catches a smaller fish and instead of turning back, he decides to go farther out into the ocean to see what he can catch with that fish. He soon is dragged all over and back by a shiny purple marlin, that is two feet longer than his skiff. The response to Santiago’s poor decision or lack of creativity to harpoon the marlin instead of try to kill it another was as to not attract mako sharks was confusing. He is shown to be a man of intelligence and greatness, yet his decision to kill the marlin in this manner knowing what could happen proves that he had a distinct motive for harpooning the fish. By the words of Gery Brenner, “that motive is self validation-the need to prove himself”(Brenner 55). In the end, after the three day struggle, when Santiago returns to the dock, he is told by Manolin later that he was said to be lost at sea, and everyone was completely taken away by the length of the mangled carcass that he brought in. The take many get from Hemingway’s novel is

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is built upon the central idea of the Hemingway Code Hero. Specifically, Hemingway uses the Hemingway Code themes of self reliance, personal competition, and courage most effectively throughout the book. As Arvin R. Wells puts it “The old fisherman fishes as much for a chance to prove himself as he does for a living, and, though he fails to bring the giant marlin to market, he wins the supreme chance to prove himself in the terms he best understands (56).” Santiago, a Cuban fisherman and the main character of The Old Man and the Sea, has gone 84 days without catching a fish, a disastrous thing for fisherman who depends on the fish for food and money. Because of this it would be easy to give up the Code in exchange for relief, but despite being put in situations where it is easy to drop from the Hemingway Code, Santiago is still able to turn the situations around and choose to keep relying on himself, still competing against others, and still being courageous.

Another one of the major conflicts Santiago faces is the massive fish he tries to catch and kill. Since the fish was so big in size and it was up to Santiago to try and reel him in, it was very difficult. He destroyed his hands from the rope while reeling the marlin in. But the trouble did not end once the marlin was in the boat. “I have never seen or

In the novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway shows that through hard work and trial, great things take place. This concept is shown many times throughout the book. At one point, when Santiago the fisherman is out at sea, his hand cramps. This inconveniences him for quite some time, for he is no longer able to hold the rope as well as he wants without feeling pain. At a second point in the book, Santiago realizes how far out he is, but still chooses to not give up his fish. Finally, near the end, Santiago’s hard earned fish gets mauled by multiple groups of sharks on the way back home. But through all this misfortune and dedication, Santiago still has a happy ending. The other fishermen realize what a great fish it was that he caught, and Santiago gets the fame for the catch.

In The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, Santiago faces trial and injury to prove himself a great fisherman. He’s pertinacious throughout each journey; working diligently, he still returns without a prospect of success. Hemingway uses powerful symbols to reveal his theme that conflict is more important than outcome.

In The Old Man and the Sea, a man named Santiago and a boy named Manolin have been fishing together for a long time. Santiago taught Manolin everything he know about fishing. They spend many days together fishing, but Santiago has had a very bad streak, 85 days without catching a fish even though Manolin has caught many. Santiago thinks that, on the 87th day, he will catch the biggest fish he has ever caught because it has happened to him before. So on the 86th day he decides to go out into the ocean without the boy because he would not be back until after the 87th day. When he sets out he has a hard time finding any fish. He sees a warbler that actually land on the stern of his skiff on his boat and then starts flying around Santiago’s head. He sees the warbler again this time it is fishing so Santiago decides to cast out where the warbler is fishing. The next day is the 87th day, Santiago is waken up by the movement of his line. When he hooks the animal, it puts a big fight with Santiago. After three days of fighting the animal, Santiago actually sees what it is and pulls it in. It was a humongous marlin. The marlin was so big that he could not even get it into the boat as a whole, he had to cut it piece by piece. When he cut the first piece the blood went into the water and sharks from miles away could smell it. Sharks started to come from miles away and Santiago had to fight them off. Santiago was getting weak because he did not have much to eat and did not get much