The Old Man and the Sea: An Example of the Typical Hemingway Essay

Ernest Miller Hemingway was one of the most celebrated American writers because of his simple manner yet complex psychological analysis. The Old Man and the Sea is merely one illustration of this typical Hemingway manner. The novelette won the Pulitzer in 19 53 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 19 54. It has remained popular since the publication in 19 52 because of its timeless subjects of battle and endurance. The narrative starts out with the supporter. Santiago who is an aged fisherman. holding an drawn-out tally of bad fortune.

It is told in 3rd individual all-knowing point of position so that while entirely. the protagonist’s ideas and feelings can be revealed. Santiago is a character who has lost his married woman and is improbably hapless. Sympathy for him is established from the beginning. He has been a fisherman from a little small town near Havana.

Cuba all of his life and he carries deep inside of himself an infinite hope that his accomplishments are ace and that his fortune will shortly alter.

Hemingway was besides a fisherman. In all actuality. he was many things. a soldier. newsman. huntsman. pugilist. and lover of the out-of-doorss. Like Santiago. he was besides aging at the clip he wrote the book. He had begun to see in himself the depredations that clip takes on a organic structure. particularly on 1 that has been pushed to the bound many times. Hemingway had lost four married womans. but to disassociate alternatively of decease. Santiago has a comrade. Manolin. but his parents order him to discontinue Santiago and his boat for one that is more successful.

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Manolin wants to stay loyal to Santiago. but is forced by a higher power to make otherwise. This leads to Santiago’s isolation.

Hemingway was a adult male who sporadically imposed isolation on himself. It could hold perchance been the isolation that was the clip for his originative mastermind to work. He resided in Cuba for a figure of old ages before Castro came to power. So he knew that the sea could be a topographic point for solidarity. It seemed like the perfect scene for the narrative of Santiago and his fishing escapade. “Jolting” Joe DiMaggio is Santiago’s hero. It is of import that he read the baseball scores every twenty-four hours. DiMaggio. whose male parent had been a fisherman. had overcome a heal goad that would hold crippled many others. but he went on to hold a successful calling. Santiago greatly admires DiMaggio’s bravery and finding. Hemingway believed that bravery was man’s greatest property.

The celebrated “Hemingway Code” is that work forces must expose bravery. finding. and a since of escapade. The codification gets its name from the qualities that Hemingway embodied. Santiago’s dreams play an of import function in the narrative. At dark he has a repeating dream about king of beastss playing on the beaches of Africa. He no longer dreamed of storms. nor of adult females. nor of great happenings. nor of great fish. nor battles. nor competitions of strength. nor of his married woman. He merely dreamed of topographic points now and of the king of beastss on the beach. They played like immature cats in the twilight and he loved them as he loved the male child. ( Hemingway. Ch. 1 )

He had seen this scene when he was a immature boat while on a ship off the shore. The dream ties Santiago’s young person with his aged nowadays. Africa was a favourite topographic point for Hemingway. Safaris were a changeless pleasance in his life. Hunting large game was his darling interest. It takes bravery and finding to confront the game that he did even with a arm. It was the since of escapade that he lived for and added to his celebrity. There was something about the freedom and power of the king of beastss that gave Santiago pleasance and peace. The king of beasts is a marauder as Hemingway felt that adult male was besides a marauder.

However. they both had another side. 1 that could be playful and loving. As Santiago departs on the sea. he becomes one with it. He considers the fish his friends and he likens his relationship with the sea to that of a adult female who is non in control of herself. He chooses the escapade of rowing to the Gulf Stream alternatively of remaining within sight of the shore. This action takes him out further that he had of all time been earlier and foreshadows his battles in the sea. He is after a marlin to interrupt his run of bad fortune. He knows that it will be hard without any aid. but that is portion of the challenge. He catches two tunas to utilize for come-on.

Merely so the austere line came tight under his pes. where he had kept the cringle of the line. and he dropped his oars and felt the weight of the little tuna’s shuddering pull as he held the line house and commenced to hale it in. The shuddering increased as he pulled in and he could see the bluish dorsum of the fish in the H2O and the gold of his sides before he swung him over the side and into the boat. He lay in the after part in the Sun. compact and slug shaped. his large. stupid eyes gazing as he thumped his life out against the planking of the boat with the speedy chill shots of his neat. fast-moving tail.

The old adult male hit him on the caput for kindness and kicked him. his organic structure still shivering. under the shadiness of the after part. ( Ch. 2 ) It was a determination that one would anticipate Hemingway to do. He would hold faced the bravery that it would take to confront the power of the sea and the marlin with an aging organic structure. Santiago hooks a marlin that is so big he can non draw it into the boat on his ain. He is determined to catch the fish regardless of what it takes from him. The marlin is the largest 1 that he has of all time seen. The marlin symbolizes the perfect opposition.

It is big. strong. and will besides contend for his life. He pulls the boat out even farther into the sea. and Santiago sees the visible radiations of Havana disappear into the distance. This action symbolizes the sloughing of modernisation and the things of human sort. Santiago must now confront his opposition with merely himself. Hemingway would encompass this quality of courage in any adult male particularly in an aging one. Santiago must trust on his monolithic cognition of the sea for endurance. He must look to his natural milieus and find the information that is to maintain him alive.

He understands the sea so good because he is non simply a fisherman who has fished for money. but he has learned great lessons from his instructor. the sea and all of its residents. Santiago uses flashback to retrieve an earlier clip when he caught a female marlin. and how her male opposite number was so grieved that he follows the boat in mourning. It is so we see that. harmonizing to Hemingway. adult females lead to grief. Santiago could non maintain the image of his married woman on the wall because it made him excessively heartbroken. Hemingway did non let adult females a outstanding and positive topographic point in his literature.

This was due to the fact that his experiences with adult females were negative. His ain female parent was cruel to the immature male child and even made him dress in female vesture. Hemingway even resented his male parent for non standing up for him. His first love was Agnes Von Kurowsky. a nurse he met after he was wounded in World War I. After a brief love affair. Agnes rejected the immature Hemingway. It broke his bosom and he ne’er genuinely travel over the experience. He so proceeded to get married four times. The first three matrimonies ended in acrimonious divorces. It was non until subsequently in life that he would run into his last married woman. Mary Welsh. and so he would happen felicity with a adult female.

By the following forenoon. Santiago has earnestly hurt his left manus. He so uses his dorsum to keep onto the fish. Even though he is in tormenting hurting. he continues to keep to the fish. Hemingway besides knew great hurting in his life. At 19. he was wounded in Italy during World War I. He took many pieces of shrapnel to the leg. Most were removed. but the hurt left him in hurting for the remainder of his life. He besides suffered greatly from hurts suffered from a plane clang in 19 54. He was left with an injured lien. a concussion. and he was blind in his right oculus.

His wellness deteriorated quickly and he was ne’er in good physical status after the clang. Santiago besides feels that the hurting that he endures makes him a worthy opposition for the great marlin. He can non assist but chew over the thought that whoever purchases the marlin one time he gets it back to shore will non be worthy to eat it and does non merit to have the marlin. This is dry because for Santiago to supply such a great fish would be an award for him. Santiago is largely characterized by his ideas and actions. He is a deep thought adult male even though he is officially uneducated. However. his cognition of the sea and endurance on the sea is huge.

He is resourceful in that he can last with the stuffs that he has with him. Santiago eats his come-on fish and uses his oar as a arm. Even though he is the marauder of the marlin. he is respectful of it and all of his natural milieus. Even though Santiago is non a spiritual adult male. there is rather a spot of Christian spiritual symbolism in the novelette. The lone two images on the walls of Santiago’s hut were of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and one of the Virgin of Cobre. the patronne of Cuba. As stated earlier. he had taken down the image of his dead married woman because it was excessively painful for him to be reminded of her.

It would look that the other two images were of import to him. He alludes to the crucifixion when he refers to his hurting as nails being driven through the custodies. Santiago is besides cut on both of his custodies. It was the markers of the manus that Jesus used to turn out to his adherent. Thomas that he was the risen Christ. The marlin. one time killed by Santiago is tied to the side of the boat. raising it up above the remainder of the fish. as Jesus was lifted on the cross. It is besides the blood of the marlin that attracts a followers of sharks merely as the blood of Christ attracts his followings.

The 4th twenty-four hours Santiago eventually kills his marlin after a tough battle that has left him dog-tired. experiencing swoon. and seeing black musca volitanss. “I have ne’er seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do non hold to seek to kill the stars. ” Imagine if each twenty-four hours a adult male must seek to kill the Moon. he thought. The Moon runs off. . . . Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nil to eat and his finding to kill him ne’er relaxed in his sorrow for him. . . . There is no 1 worthy of eating him from the mode of his behaviour and his great self-respect.

I do non understand these things. he thought. But it is good that we do non hold to seek to kill the Sun or the Moon or the stars. It is adequate to populate on the sea and kill our true brothers. ( Ch 3 ) He is winning. but admirations if it is he who killed the marlin or the marlin that has killed him. It is his lesions that allow him to cognize that the state of affairs is existent and he is decidedly alive. Then the fish came alive. with his decease in him. and rose high out of the H2O demoing all his great length and breadth and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old adult male in the skiff.

Then he fell into the H2O with a clang that sent spray over the old adult male and over all of the skiff. ( Ch 4 ) The onslaught of the mako shark is lay waste toing to Santiago. It takes at least 40 lbs of meat from the marlin before Santiago can kill it with his harpoon. Unfortunately. the mako shark sinks with the harpoon stuck in it. This leaves Santiago unarmed far plenty out in the sea that he is defenceless. Now that the blood is fluxing quickly from the marlin. he knows that other sharks will follow. and he is right. It is non long before a brace of shovel-nose sharks arrive and get down to take their toll on the marlin.

Santiago decides to bring forth a make-shift lance by attaching his knife to an oar. He skilfully kills the sharks. but does non believe that were worthy oppositions like the mako shark. More and more shovel-nose sharks are drawn by the marlin’s blood. Santiago fights them off losing his knife in the procedure. He is merely left with a nine. but he continued to contend. When it was all over. all he had left was the skeleton of the marlin. He feels that he was defeated or crucified. The suspense that Hemingway creates at this point in the narrative is unbelievable. It is unsure if Santiago will last or if he will decease as did the marlin.

He stated that he and the marlin were one. and at this point there is small uncertainty that he will fall in the marlin in his destiny. In a surprise turn of destiny. Santiago does do it back place with a ravaged organic structure and weariness. He struggles to transport the skeleton of the marlin to his hovel. Once he makes it to his hovel. he collapses on his little bed with his weaponries outstretched like Christ during the crucifixion. He falls into a deep slumber. Manolin is surprised to happen Santiago in his bed the following forenoon. He notices the old man’s custodies and feels an huge sum of commiseration for him.

The other fishermen notice the immense skeleton of the marlin. and they measure it to happen that it was 18 pess long. Manolin. who is in cryings. goes to acquire java for Santiago. When he returns he tells him of the hunt for him by the Coast Guard and how many thought that he was dead. Manolin now sees Santiago as a hero that he can look up to. He tells the aged adult male that he will work with him on his boat no affair what his parents say. He has seen the bravery that Santiago demonstrated. and now Manolin knows that if he could digest what he did. so he excessively can cite his bravery.

Hemingway felt that work forces should lodge together to promote each other when it came to their bravery. Manolin went to acquire Santiago some nutrient and a newspaper. He knows that after his ordeal in the sea. he deserves it. Pedrico. the local coffeehouse proprietor. sends free nutrient to Santiago through Manolin. He so promises that he will give Pedrico that he can hold the caput of the marlin. Subsequently on that afternoon. some tourer mistook the skeletal marlin caput for a shark. They could non grok what the significance of the great fish had meant. Manolin so returns to the hovel and finds that Santiago has once more fallen asleep.

He sits down and watches him dream about the king of beastss. From Manolin conveying the old adult male java to the old man’s return to kip to woolgather. one time once more. about the king of beastss. ( Ch 5 ) The drama of the ferocious king of beastss symbolizes contrasting forces. Santiago has learned that these forces are a natural portion of life. Even though he is an old adult male. he has come full circle and is linking with his young person. One of the major subjects of the novel is that there is honor in decease. a battle. and in licking if one gives it all that he has to the battle. Santiago struggles with the elements of nature. sea animals. and society during the whole novelette.

He is ready to confront decease when he opposes the marlin and the sharks. The fact that he was confronting a worthy opposition made him experience that it was worthy of decease. It was a battle that would take to the decease of one or the other. Hemingway was non afraid to confront decease in the escapades. He faced danger in the ocean. on African campaign. and his determination to take his ain boat and freed the Plaza Hotel from the Germans during World War II. Pride is another major subject of the narrative. You did non kill the fish merely to maintain alive and to sell for nutrient. he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman.

You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him. it is non a wickedness to kill him. Or is it more? ( Ch 4 ) Santiago takes pride in his fishing accomplishments and in his finding. When he successfully gimmicks and kills the marlin. he is proud of his achievement. Hemingway does non reprobate pride. He was proud of his achievements and saw no shame in it. The agony of adult male is besides a subject of the book. Suffering is a normal portion of life. Santiago goes through an utmost sum of hurting while on his fishing escapade. His dorsum and custodies take the worst of the harm.

After he returned place. Manolin notices that his custodies are wholly mutilated custodies. He suffers the hurting of holding his award gimmick that he worked and sacrificed so much destroyed by the sharks. When the novelette opened. Santiago suffered the scolding of the other fishermen. He endures it with award. It was easy to see why this was the novel that won Hemingway the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize. The work embodied the author’s best work. It was a perfect illustration of how Hemingway was populating at the clip. and contained many of the lessons that he had learned about life.