Hemingway Determination

Tommy Landsora, famous baseball coach once said “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination.” Determination is something that everyone has, it's what drives us to consummate tasks. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the short story, “Through The Tunnel”, there are two characters that have undoubted amounts of determination. Atticus, from “To Kill a Mockingbird”, is set on making sure his client Tom Robinson doesn't get sent to jail. In the short story “Through The Tunnel” Jerry had the fortitude to go through the underwater tunnel like the other boys did. Determinations can lead to great things but unfair circumstances can get in the way of accomplishing said goals. In both these stories, the authors explore the idea of determination.

Individuals may look deep within to summon courage that is necessary to move past triumphs and tragedies. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago struggles greatly to search for hope in seemingly hopeless situations. The idea that people look deep within to summon courage is portrayed through the actions of Santiago, Manolin, and Manolin’s parents.

During the time period Hemingway was writing The Old Man and the Sea, fear was present in society, e.g. The Red Scare. The fearless perseverance of the novel’s main character, Santiago, contrasts the feelings of Americans during the forties. Through reverse psychology, the valiant actions of Santiago in his perils with the marlin he was fishing, alleviated some of the unease present in American minds. The instilled the thought process of not blanching what is possible. Santiago narrates his moral correction along the lines of the same topic, “Now is no time to think [fear] what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” The quote elucidates Hemingway’s opinion of apprehension and how he found no place for it throughout the sixty-one years of his life. Events concurrent with the lives of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in their personal lives and the views of the public gave way to the formation of the plots in The Great Gatsby and The Old Man and the Sea. The structure of both novels adds to the claim: Fitzgerald and Hemingway are two of the best modernists in their

“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated. (Hemingway 103).” This quote, written by Ernest Hemingway in the short story The Old Man and the Sea, captures the theme perseverance in numerous ways. This quote describes when the old man Santiago was struck down physically, with the injuries of his hands and the pain of staying awake for a number of days. However, he mentally kept pushing forward, leading to his ultimate survival and his arrival home. Ernest Hemingway wanted the readers of this story to learn about the rewards of perseverance because of the hardship Santiago and the marlin had to endure, rather than themes such as luck, pride, and suffering.

Ernest Hemingway combined three of the most random symbols into one of Literature’s well known books. The Old Man and the Sea has several symbolic meanings hidden in its pages. The old man can be seen as a Christ or Christian figure. The marlin is compared to as greater than his opponent. Joe DiMaggio is also compared to the old man because of their similar backgrounds. Santiago is also seen as weak by the other fishermen, but by the end of the novel they had an unspoken respect for the old man who caught the marlin, worked like Christ, and loved what he

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.

There are many occasions in life in which a person faces an arduous task and falls short of their goal, and in many cases they ultimately lose sight of what is important in life. Through trials and triumphs, it is a person's character that truly defines their successfulness in life. Ernest Hemingway, author of Old Man and the Sea, skillfully uses Santiago’s words, “A man can be defeated but not destroyed,” to echo the resiliency of not only an old man, but of the nature of the entire human race, throughout his novel.

The Old Man and the Sea has man tensions, ambiguities, and ironies that arise within the work which the work uses towards a particular theme. There are several themes that unify into one resolution. The Old Man and the Sea can be interpreted to discover how it functions as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. This would be how the structural purpose of the text could be explored. The first step to this process is to find a confusing, unclear section within the text.

Most importantly, Hemingway’s “heroes are not defeated except upon their own terms” (Warren, 55); what matters to them “is the stoic endurance, … the stiff upper lip” (Warren, 55) which represents victory in their own ways. Hemingway then masterfully shows how these principles affect the character’s lives in a positive light. Santiago, the protagonist of The Old Man and The Sea, shows how the code hero principles help him gain peace despite his failure to catch the large fish. The struggle may also be arduous and testing, as shown in The Nick Adams Stories. We the audience see Nick Adams, the protagonist and code hero, evolve from a naïve child in the beginning of the story, all the way to a fully realized code hero at the end. Hemingway maps Adam’s journey as one with both blessings and hardships; however, in the end, these learned principles give Adams peace and understanding with his life. These heroes all face different forms of defeat or death; however in the end, they “all manage to salvage something” (Warren, 35) out of these excruciating circumstances. Ernest Hemingway utilizes Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea as a fully developed code hero and Nick Adams

“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).

The story and the song used in this comparison are “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway and “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson. Both of them deal with hope and strong urge of motivation. However, they deal with it in a distinctive yet a very similar way. This essay will convey the main settings, plots, and themes differences between the two pieces.

In Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago demonstrates the traits of the code hero. The Hemingway’s code hero covers the principal ideals of honor, courage, and endurance in a misfortune life. Throughout the novel, Santiago shows a contrast between opposite attitudes and values which associate his behavior with the guidelines of the code. In this case, the depiction of conflicting values, such as dignity despite humility, perseverance despite despair, and victory despite defeat are aspects that help to describe and understand the role of Santiago in the novel, and reflect the reason why this character is perfectly suited to the heroic conduct established by Hemingway.

     Hemingway's view of human nature was that happiness was rare and was found within a man and not in his outside circumstances or surroundings.  Hemingway illustrates this in three ways.  First, he portrays the human nature of Santiago, the main character, as being one of humility and compassion, full of strength and pride.  He is shown not as a gleefully happy man, but one who meets life with a serene, quiet resilience.  Second, Santiago's fellow villagers are shown as shallow and materialistic, with a narrow view of life compared to his.  Their focus on appearances is in sharp contrast to Santiago's focus on intrinsic values.  Third, it will be shown that his rare

Ernest Hemingway uses the characters in The Old Man and the Sea to demonstrate how perseverance is necessary for survival. After battling with the fish for several days, Santiago wishes the circumstances could be different: “‘Be patient, hand,’ he said. ‘I do this for you.’

Santiago of The Old Man and the Sea is the quintessential “Hemingway Hero”-a type of fictional character created by Hemingway in all of his books whose basic response to life appealed very strongly to the readers. The Old Man begins the narrative with all the elements of such a hero despite his senescence and poverty. He shows strength, determination, and dedication to himself despite his struggles. Santiago relates back to readers as a strong failure who picks himself up repeatedly.