Hemingway's Pride Thesis

How does this attitude find its expression?”(Brooks and Warren). They dive into these questions by looking into the nature of Hemingway’s characters. “Hemingway’s typical characters are usually tough men, experienced in the hard worlds they inhabit, and apparently insensitive”(Brooks and Warren). Brooks and Warren discuss how Hemingway’s characters typically deal with hardships and difficult relationships with others. These characters match up with Hemingway’s stories which usually involve some form of defeat. Brooks and Warren take an unbiased view into the characters, focusing on how they are developed and their typical situation. They explain how characters are based off of Hemingway himself by stating “This is Hemingway’s world, too”(Brooks and Warren). Hemingway shows his attitude towards his works through strong characters that he believed to have once been part of

Setting: Post World War I era, 1919. In Howard’s (Kreb’s) quaint home town in Oklahoma. All who have returned from the harsh war are welcomed; their stories as well. All except for Krebs.

The writer/artist that I chose to enlighten you with has inspired many writers as well as literature majors for many years. He continues to tickle our imaginations with the legacy that he has left us with. This man was as genuine as you can get. He was loved by many. He made an impact on any life that he came across. This man is non other than, Ernest Hemingway.

            War, usually thought of as a masculine fight for glory, is reversed in Hemingway's writings.  Instead of men showing their masculinity, he portrays a war that takes away men's masculinity through injuries that deprive them the rest of their lives.

“ Man can be destroyed but not defeated”. Santiago thinks this in the story the Old Man and the Sea. I wholeheartedly disagree with this quote. Santiago was defeated in his voyage with the marlin. He has to base his success off of others, receives charity from his neighbors who work hard for their own living,profits off of nothing in the book, and is unlucky from the very first page.

Santiago, in “The Old Man and The Sea”, is a tragic hero because he continues to go after the marlin when it is futile, he does not rely or ask others for help and he has an aspiration to push his limits. Santiago continues to go after the marlin even when he knows it is a losing battle. An example of this is when he says, “‘I wish I had the boy [...] I’m being towed by a fish and I’m the towing bitt’” (Hemingway 45).

After America’s entry to WW1 on April 6th, Hemingway wanted to serve in the U.S Army, but was rejected because he failed the physical examination (due to eye trouble). However, with Hemingway still wanting to participate in the war effort, he moved to Schio, Italy and enlisted in the Red Cross medical service as an ambulance driver. On July 8th, 1918 Hemingway was badly injured by an Austrian mortar shell, while delivering chocolates and cigarettes to soldiers on the front. Although he was badly wounded by the mortar shell, and hit by a gun fire too, Hemingway helped to protect the soldiers and keep them out of harm’s way. The Italian government later awarded him the Silver Medal of Military valor for his gallant actions

But perhaps the greatest figure of masculinity found in Hemingway’s work is Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea. He keeps his composure and maintains dignity after the fish that he has been fighting is lost to the sharks.

Hemingway talked of arm wrestling competitions lasting over 24 hours that Santiago won, and the fish that he brought in with his crew. Now, the old man dreams of the lions when he is nothing but strong. He calls upon the lions as a familiar and happy memory to help him conquer the difficulties that he is about to

-----------------------------------------------------------------. Throughout the short stories of Ernest Hemingway people of color and other ethnicities are deemed inferior by the caucasian- americans in the story despite being portrayed by Hemingway in a bad light. In Hemingway’s short stories he explores ideas of racism through the portrayal of white americans having a false sense of superiority over other races.

Examples of the “code” hero in Hemingway’s work include Manuel the bullfighter, in “The Undefeated” he fights with a noble dignity even when he is jeered by the crowd and gored by the bull, along with Wilson, the big game hunter from “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” who shows no fear when confronted with a charging lion. But perhaps the greatest figure of masculinity found in Hemingway’s work is Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea. He keeps his composure and maintains dignity after the fish that he has been fighting is lost to the sharks.

Throughout literature many protagonist are immediately shown as heroes and were showered accolades for their feats. There are characters though that are not immediately shown out right as being heroic. On the surface when reading The Old Man and the Sea this is a story of an old poor fisherman who ends up battling a great marlin only to have this trophy taken away from him by a group of sharks. Hemingway’s portrayal of Santiago is not only a story of an old fisherman past his prime and whose endeavors end in futility. Through the character of Santiago Hemingway hopes to create a character for his audience to identify with by showing qualities of pride, determination, and heroism.

“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.

Hemingway died July 2, 1961, at his home, as the result of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Ernest Hemingway had a different style of writing than the other authors in his

“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).