The Old Man And The Sea Compare And Contrast Essay

The second difference between these stories, is the details of social class. Although it is not the most important detail about the characters, it still holds key information about the types of people they are. In Hemingway’s story the characters are of a higher class. They are able to travel the world, and when he is trying to persuade her to abort the child, he promises

    One might say we are presented with two fish stories in looking at Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a marlin in the former and a whale in the latter.  However, both of these animals are symbolic of the struggle their hunters face to find dignity and meaning in the face of a nihilistic universe in Hemingway and a fatalistic one in Melville.  While both men will be unable to conquer the forces of the universe against them, neither will either man be conquered by them because of their refusal to yield to these insurmountable forces.  However, Santiago gains a measure of peace and understanding about existence from his struggles, while Ahab leaves the

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.

'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

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

Symbolism in literature is used to give an entirely different meaning which is more significant and much deeper to a story using objects representing other objects and giving them a sense that is different from their literal meaning. The meaning of the symbols used to depend on the reader, and there is no universal meaning for symbols used because their purpose is inherent in the symbol itself. In both stories, the authors use symbols to give different meanings to their story.

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.

     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.

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

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).

“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.