The Old Man And The Sea Character Analysis

But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller” (Hemingway, 2003, p. 112). Santiago realizes that he is getting older and has been defeated, but he must keep going. In this time, Santiago must persevere. Santiago realizes that he will never catch a fish and that he is just unlucky. In conclusion, Santiago realizes that he may not have luck, but he must keep trying.

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self” Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea By: Ernest Hemingway and Between the World and Me By: Ta-Nehisi Coates are very similar in many different ways. The comparison of each book is shown well in the setting, theme, and in Symbolism.

In both competitions, Santiago demonstrates a great sense of will power and perseverance. For example, the arm wrestling match was also a test of endurance, just like his battle with the marlin: “They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line…the odds would change back and forth all night…but [Santiago would] raise his hand up to dead even again” (70). Similarly, he fights the fish for three long days and does not give up. After this twenty-four hour arm wrestling game, “everyone called him The Champion” (70). This defeat was important for Santiago because it proved that Santiago once had enough strength to beat the strongest man on the docks, who is implicitly compared to the marlin. It is also interesting to note that during this part of the narrative, Santiago also remembers another worthy opponent: Joe DiMaggio, another hero who shows an amazing strength of will that helps him overcome adversity. With this flashback, then, Hemingway establishes a sense of heroic virtues as spiritual rather than physical qualities.

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.

The protagonist of Hemingway’s short story, Santiago, is a man with much pride. The reader learns that he has gone eighty-four days without any luck catching a fish. Fellow fishermen taunt him, and the parents of his former apprentice, Manolin, refer to him as,” …definitely and finally salao,” meaning the worst form of unlucky. Nevertheless, the man has undefeated eyes. Determination and his prideful heart drive him to his goal of setting out farther to sea than usual, where the big fish are, despite his fruitless streak.

Throughout the book, Santiago faces many unfortunate events, but after every single one of them, he gets back up and continues on. He knows that he has already come this far, and that there is no turning back now, besides, he wants to show Manolin that the great fisherman he once was lives on. “‘I’ll kill him though,” he said. “In all his greatness and his glory.’ Although it is unjust, he thought.

It is ambiguous whether the old man succeeds or fails. At first, it seems that if Santiago has failed. “He sailed lightly now and he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind” (Hemingway 119). It is almost like he has lost everything that he has worked for. The old man accepts defeat as is, without mourning or grief Fortunately, after all the damage has been taken, he keeps fishing. He built some sort of relationship with the marlin, but was later broken. He has since moved on.

     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

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

succeed. He uses his hands and he uses his instincts to master the art of

The nobility of character of the old man prevents him from feel hate and rancor toward the other fishermen. Despite the taunts of the other fishermen, Santiago is quiet and admits having a bad streak of luck. This makes him an honorable man, which avoids any conflict and is able to recognize his flaws as a fisherman. Although the sea has given him several bitter drinks, he is able to keeping on loving it. “A man is honest when he acts honestly, he is humble when he acts humbly, he loves when he is loving or being loved.” (Waldmeir 165). Perhaps, the crowning act of humility in Santiago is when he is forced to recognize that by his own forces he will not be enough to grab the fish, and decides to carry out prayers to the Almighty. At the end of the hunting of the big animal, Santiago does not become conceited. His simple and humble soul thanks with a prayer for the outcome of his effort. Although the fighting has been severe and bloody, the old man was not self-styled "hero”. Santiago humbly considers himself as one fisherman more, and the categorization as a hero depends on the readers. “It is the knowledge that a simple man is capable of such decency, dignity, and even heroism, and that his struggle can be seen in heroic terms, that largely distinguishes this book.” (Young 131). The evident relation between his humility and dignity helps to place Santiago as a perfect

One might think that destruction is like defeat, but it is not. Think of it like someone rebuilding a house after it was destroyed by a storm; the house might have fallen apart, but it is not gone forever, it is eventually going to return better than ever. The parable, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway shares similar characteristics with the boxing drama Rocky directed by John G. Avildsen. The Old Man and the Sea is set in a fishing village near Havana, Cuba during the 1940s, and Santiago is the protagonist. Rocky Balboa from the movie Rocky that takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1975 displays the same theme as The Old Man and the Sea.

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.

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea is considered to be one of the most prominent and famous works of the author that has earned him the world-wide recognition. The significance of the short novel was recognized by the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Besides, it could have contributed to the provision of the Noble Prize to Hemingway. Even though the work was the regeneration of Hemingway's writing activities, it has met controversial literary critic. While being referred to as the new classic equal to the works of Faulkner and Melville, the short novel was also criticized for the author's departure from the uncompromising realism or even for the considerations that it was an attack upon them. Nevertheless, the story of the old fisherman Santiago who strongly struggled to get the largest catch of his life and succeeded in overcoming the obstacles, even though the results seemed more like a defeat.

Despite his failures, he sets out in his boat after having caught no fish for eighty-four days. Nevertheless, Santiago never loses his confidence in his fishing abilities. Hemingway describes the humble Old Man with, “His hope and confidence had never gone.”(pg 13) Ernest Hemingway goes on to say, “He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.” (pg 13)