Old Man And The Sea Theme

“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

Even though he is an adolescent boy, Manolin loves spending time with Santiago. He loves to go out fishing with him but, his parents no longer will let him. The reason for this is because Santiago has not caught a fish for eighty-four days. As a result of this unfortunate occurrence, others deem Santiago the term salao, or the worst kind of unlucky. Knowing the struggle Santiago is facing, Manolin tries to help him in as many ways as possible. Manolin brings Santiago drinks, food and the newspaper so they can talk about baseball and the great Joe DiMaggio. In spending all this time with the old man, Manolin develops a form of respect for him. He comes to understand that despite the recent unlucky situations, Santiago remains hopeful as well as prideful. This is why Manolin looks up to the old man so much. “Santiago… I could go with you again. We have made some money. The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him” (Hemingway 10). Along with just loving Santiago for himself, Manolin also looks up to him because Santiago taught him how to fish. Manolin understands that he is a large part of Santiago’s life and feels honored and

Particularly, Santiago embraces the idea of being unified with the nature surrounding us. Being an old, poverty-stricken man, Santiago spends everyday of his life out at sea, hoping to catch enough fish to feed himself in order to live for another day. By being out at sea so much, Santiago developed an exceptionally strong

Sometimes people have to do sacrifices, which appears in the rising action of the book. “‘Fish,’ he said, ‘I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before the day ends’” (Hemingway 54). Why did he have to kill it? Why couldn’t he hold on a little longer? Santiago sacrifices the fish for his self interest. In spite of the fact that he respects the fish, the old man’s determination reflects his belief that his purpose in life is to be a fisherman, and that comes first. As well, Santiago advises himself that he doesn't have Manolin, his beloved companion, with him and must battle against the fish by himself. It has been four struggling days of being pulled by the huge marlin, Santiago decided that that was enough. Even though

Death is the unavoidable force in the novella, the one fact that no living creature can escape. But death, Hemingway suggests, is never an end in itself: in death there is always the possibility of the most vigorous life. The reader notes that as Santiago slays the marlin, not only is the old man reinvigorated by the battle, but the fish also comes alive “with his death in him.” Life, the possibility of renewal, necessarily follows on the heels of death.

I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it. Slowly and conscientiously he ate all of the wedge-shaped strips of fish” (59). This relates to perseverance by showing how Santiago doesn’t really want to harm the fish, but he knows he has to in order to make a living. Santiago’s hand has cramped up, yet he feels sorry for the fish, not himself. He has caught a few small fish to eat raw. He wishes he could feed the

'What 's that? ' she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was just now garbage waiting to go out with the tide. 'Tiburon, ' the waiter said, 'Shark. ' He was meaning to explain what dare grapple happened. 'I didn 't know sharks had such handsome tails. ' 'I didn 't either, ' her male companion said." (page 109) these two tourists who speak are hardly differentiated from the group to which they belong. They are all metaphors for individuals who are spectators of the human scene rather than participants in its activity. They see, but they see without fully comprehending. They are only faintly curious, only passingly interested, only superficially observing, they have not been initiated into the mysteries that Santiago understands. These tourists live their lives as tourists, skimming the surface of life, without resolution or clarity. Their life reflects that of all people who live their lives ashore, who dare not grapple with the mysteries of the ocean, or of life. This is the type of life that Hemingway always tried to avoid, to the point of his taking his own life. Hemingway uses metaphors to reflect his opinions of life and the people that he has met in life. The metaphor of the sea symbolizes all of life and the roles that people must choose to have in life. The lions are a metaphor for the

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.

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea has engendered some lively debate in literary circles. Critics have concentrated on everything in the novella from the verity of Rigel's early evening appearance over Cuban skies in September (Weeks 192) to William Faulkner's judgment that Hemingway discovered God while writing The Old Man and the Sea (Bradford 158-62). Yet the most insightful commentary has gravitated invariably toward biblical, natural, and classical imagery in the novel. These images turn an otherwise simple fishing tale into a sublime narrative of human endurance. A reading that examines these images will serve to clarify the hidden significance in

In the fishing world, catching a fish is not easy. In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago fishes on the eighty-fifth day knowing what a journey brings. Santiago goes with hope in his mind and with melancholy from leaving Manolin behind. Santiago of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea proves to be human is to suffer as well as to care for others.

The lions, first presented in a flashback to Santiago’s childhood, and most important throughout the story in Santiago’s dreams, develop to symbolize his youth and indirectly symbolize the boy. When relating to Manolin the things that mean most to him, Santiago expresses “When I was your age I was before the mast on a square-rigged ship that ran to Africa and I have seen lions on the beaches in the evening” (Hemingway). This marks the beginning of the comparable relation between Santiago’s youthful memories of the lion and his thoughts of Manolin. The lions also symbolize Santiago’s dwindling stance as a revered fisherman. As lions in their native habitat, hold a reverence as symbols of bravery, adventure, and strength, when presented in Santiago’s dreams the lions lacked these characteristics, and are instead marked by playfulness and adolescence. This distinct contrast symbolizes a decline in the characteristics that once marked Santiago as a famous fisherman of his time. These shifts in characteristic, displayed in Santiago’s memory of the lions also inspire a perspective of humbleness in Santiago’s dull character. Considering the link between the lion’s and Santiago’s lively youth is equivalent to his memory of them in his dull adulthood, the lions infuse a sense of transition from childhood to adulthood with sustained virtue in Santiago’s character. The lions accomplish the same task in balancing the link between Santiago and his young

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 has a way of making his readers believe that the feats and strengths that his characters obtain in his novels are actually possible. Although this statement may be too critical, and maybe there is a man out there, somewhere on the coast of Cuba who at this very moment is setting out to the open sea to catch a marlin of his own. The struggle many readers have is believing the story of Santiago’s physical powers and his strength against temptation bring forward the question of whether or not The Old Man and the Sea is worthy to be called a classic. Hemingway’s Santiago brought Faulkner and millions of other readers on their knees, while to some, believed Hemingway

“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).

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated”Hemingway develops Santiago as a hero in order to show how fragile things can be strong in the inside.Even Though santiago seemed like a weak old man, while he was alone at sea trying to catch a fish;he demonstrates how strong,positive,and undefeated he is.