“This is the worst book I’ve ever read”, “Why do we have to read this?”, “The school making us read this is basically child cruelty”. Okay maybe that last judgement was a tad dramatic but I will NOT say it is completely wrong. These were just a few comments thrown around the Bishop Tyrrell English classroom when the students were forced told to read the Novella called The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway was an American Novelist, short story writer and journalist. No one liked his work before he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, and frankly I think it should have stayed that way. Hemingway tried to mix up the traditional style of writing when creating the novella that went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
The Old Man and the Sea is a short story about an old man called Santiago, who was a well-known, successful fisherman that falls into a dry spell of 84 days. However, this does not deter him as fishing is not only his means to eat and survive, it is also something that he finds entertaining and he does not want to quit, even when a giant fish is so strong it hauls him out to sea and his aged body cannot haul it into the boat (not that it would fit). With the story being about fishing it’s no wonder the class was drifting off when reading page 1.
The renowned author expresses his goal in writing by saying “You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it
In the book The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway uses the flashback technique in order to characterize Santiago and develop key themes of the novel, such as Santiago’s connection with nature and what it means to be a hero. Hemingway employs several flashbacks as an effective technique that develops Santiago’s character as he recalls past occurrences in order to renew his strength of will. There are three flashbacks in particular that are critical to the development of this story. The first flashback describes a time when Santiago associated himself with the marlins. The second flashback occurs when Santiago arm-wrestled the town’s strongest
The epic journey of “The Old Man and the Sea” describes struggle, discipline and manhood. The main characters relationships exemplify how faith and skill overcome man’s adversity during life on the sea. Santiago’s growing relationship with the boy idealizes his statute as a father figure and develops his integrity and values towards the boy. Hemmingway shows us how an old fisherman’s will to overcome the sea’s obstacles proves his manhood to himself and the young boy. His skills and knowledge of the sea provide a positive influence for the young boy to become a great fisherman someday.
Life is full of obstacles. The Old man has many, but chooses to push through life. One of his obstacles is the fact that he lives a lonely life. Santiago lost his wife and never remarried. He has no children or family to comfort and support him. The only companion Santiago has is the local boy. The boy is fond of Santiago, but his family is not. The boy’s parent do not think Santiago id good for the boy because the man is unlucky. The boy brings Santiago food and companionship. Even though the boy is a friend to Santiago he still has an empty part that should hold family. The old man continues through life with no wife or children and on to his next journey with the sea.
There is hardly any progress, determination or success without unforgiving struggle and defeat. The road to success is a never-ending battle, but the outcomes of the war are rewarding and the avails are extraordinary. It is just a matter of having endurance when the will to continue becomes impossible and unimaginable. The idea of struggle lies deep within the plot of the novel, The Old Man and the Sea and the motion picture, Life of Pi. In the novel, the old fisherman, Santiago spends a few days out at sea attempting to capture the fish of his dreams. He battles through pain, thirst and hunger in order to bring the Marlin to the shore. However, while losing his prey, he gains a priceless experience combined with pride, respect and
In the novel The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway, there is a fish that the old man finally catches after 84 days, but is consumed by Mako shark’s in the process of reeling it in. Santiago, the old man, had a strong connection with the marlin even though he only saw him for a short period of time. They taught each other many things through a tug and war type of play. Catching a marlin fish was a goal of Santiago that he had been attempting to fulfill for a decent period of time, and after being persistent and patient, slowly but surely he was able to succeed. Many symbols in Hemingway’s novel have their own counterparts in my own life, which include a goal, hope, and idolization.
In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway uses the literary device of metaphors. Hemingway uses the metaphor of the ocean to symbolize life, and to depict the role that individuals play in life. Hemingway uses the metaphor of the lions to signify people who live their lives as active participants. The tourists in the novel represent the individuals, who in observe their lives and are not active participants. In the novels that Ernest Hemingway writes, he uses metaphors to reflect his life experiences and opinions. The ocean in The Old Man and the Sea is a metaphor, which represents Hemingway 's personal view of life. Hemingway believes that in life everyone must find their own niche and uses the metaphor of the ocean and the
succeed. He uses his hands and he uses his instincts to master the art of
Ernest Hemingway is an extremely talented author whose classic novella was a very inspirational piece. The Old Man and the Sea, was a short novel that involved Santiago, an old fisherman who was unable to fish for eighty-four days, going on a fishing trip to see if his luck would change around. He results in catching an eighteen foot Marlin, but faces many obstacles when attempting to take him home. The book was filled with vivid details and superb language, motivational themes, and a dynamic main character who thrives through it all. With this said, Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea deserves an A for his incredible ability to write.
In the timeless novel The Old Man and the Sea, the hero is undoubtedly the old man, Santiago, whom us as readers become very acquainted with. Santiago is a hard-worker and perseveres through every problem nature brings to him. He is in the midst of a horrendous fishing drought, during which the townspeople laugh and ridicule him. Santiago just lets the criticism pass him by because he is confident that the fish of his lifetime is coming soon. In a sense, Santiago represents the ideas of honor and pride. He is also a hero to a young boy named Manolin who conveys the image that the old man is whom he would rather live
The Old Man and the Sea was written by Ernest Hemingway and published in 1952. This is a captivating fiction story about a man named Santiago and his adventure when one day, he goes on a fishing journey to catch the big one. However, this adventure quickly becomes one of pain and suffering when things take a turn for the worse.
Many of Ernest Hemingway’s stories are either literally or figuratively based on his life experiences. The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Bimini, Bahamas, and published in 1952. It was the last major work by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. Its writing was influenced by his life around him. This is shown through the way the novella is written and key events and parts within it. The Old Man and the Sea can be interpreted as an allegory of Hemingway’s life and career at the time he wrote it.
“Hemingway’s greatness is in his short stories, which rival any other master of the form”(Bloom 1). The Old Man and the Sea is the most popular of his later works (1). The themes represented in this book are religion (Gurko 13-14), heroism (Brenner 31-32), and character symbolism (28). These themes combine to create a book that won Hemingway a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and contributed to his Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 (3).
Gertrude Stein made a tremendous impact on the author of The Old Man and The Sea, Ernest Hemingway. Gertrude, an American novelist, poet, playwright and art collector, served as a mentor for Ernest. The novelist also served as a godmother to Ernest along with her companion, Alice B. Toklas. Ernest Hemingway used his experience with Gertrude in his 1952 book, The Old Man and The Sea. Santiago and Manolin share a relationship similar to Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Throughout The Old Man and The Sea, Ernest Hemingway provides countless details conveying that Manolin and Santiago have a relationship that is more complex than a friendship. Ernest Hemingway portrays Manolin and Santiago’s relationship as all of the following: an
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,
Throughout the book, The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway uses a writing style known as stream of consciousness which entails using uninterrupted thoughts and feelings of the main character. This writing style shows through the character Santiago while he is at sea. Santiago talks to himself which essentially correlates to how he feels at that moment. The usage of the technique stream of consciousness engages the reader into how the character feels during that moment making the reader connected to the character. Hemingway uses this technique to its fullest in the novel when the author shows Santiago talking to himself about DiMaggio and to then eventually thinking that he wanted to be the marlin.