Dr. M. Fahmy Raiyah

Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961)

AUTHOR Ernest Hemingway was born in Illinois in 1899. He began his writing career as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. He served as a Red Cross ambulance driver in World War I and was sent to

Italy. In 1921, Hemingway moved to Paris, where he served as a press

correspondent and wrote his first novel The Sun Also Rises in 1926. His writing style is very brief and straightforward. His novel The Old Man and the Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for

Fiction in 1953. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Many of his works are classics of American literature. He suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1961.

OLD MAN AND THE SEA

For eighty-four days, Santiago, an aged Cuban fisherman, has set out to sea and returned empty-handed. So unlucky is he that the parents of his young, devoted apprentice and friend, Manolin, have forced the boy to leave the old man in order to fish in a more successful boat. Nevertheless, the boy continues to care for the old man upon his return each night. He helps the old man carry his gear to his hut, secures food for him, and discusses the latest developments in American baseball, especially the trials of the old man’s hero, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago is confident that his lack of luck will soon come to an end, and he resolves to sail out farther than usual the following day.

After discussing with Santiago the greatest ballplayers and the greatest baseball managers, the boy declares that Santiago is the greatest fisherman: “There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only you.” Finally, the boy leaves, and the old man goes to sleep. He dreams his sweet, recurring dream, of lions playing on the white beaches of Africa, a scene he saw from his ship when he was a very young man.

On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago does as promised, sailing his skiff far beyond the island’s shallow coastal waters and venturing into the Gulf Stream. He prepares his lines and drops them. At noon, a big fish, which he knows is a marlin, takes the bait that Santiago has placed one hundred fathoms deep in the waters. The old man expertly hooks the fish, but he cannot pull it in. Instead, the fish begins to pull the boat.

Unable to tie the line fast to the boat for fear the fish would snap a taut line, the old man bears the strain of the line with his shoulders, back, and hands, ready to give slack should the marlin make a run. The fish pulls the boat all through the day, through the night, through another day, and through another night. It swims steadily northwest until at last it tires and swims east with the current. The entire time, Santiago endures constant pain from the fishing line. Whenever the fish lunges, leaps, or makes a dash for freedom, the cord cuts Santiago badly. Although wounded and weary, the old man feels a deep empathy and admiration for the marlin, his brother in suffering, strength, and resolve.

On the third day the fish tires, and Santiago, sleep-deprived, aching, and nearly delirious, manages to pull the marlin in close enough to kill it with a harpoon thrust. Dead beside the skiff, the marlin is the largest Santiago has ever seen. He lashes it to his boat, raises the small mast, and sets sail for home.

As Santiago sails on with the fish, the marlin’s blood leaves a trail in the water and attracts sharks. The first to attack is a great mako shark, which Santiago manages to slay with the harpoon. In the struggle, the old man loses the harpoon and lengths of valuable rope, which leaves him vulnerable to other shark attacks.

The old man fights off the successive vicious predators as best he can, stabbing at them with a crude spear he makes by lashing a knife to an oar, and even clubbing them with the boat’s tiller. Although he kills several sharks, more and more appear, and by the time night falls, Santiago’s continued fight against the scavengers is useless. They devour the marlin’s precious meat, leaving only skeleton, head, and tail. Santiago chastises himself for going “out too far,” and for sacrificing his great and worthy opponent. He arrives home before daybreak, stumbles back to his shack, and sleeps very deeply.

The next morning, a crowd of amazed fishermen gathers around the skeletal carcass of the fish, which is still lashed to the boat. Knowing nothing of the old man’s struggle, tourists at a nearby café observe the remains of the giant marlin and mistake it for a shark. Manolin, who has been worried sick over the old man’s absence, is moved to tears when he finds Santiago safe in his bed. The boy fetches the old man some coffee and the daily papers with the baseball scores, and watches him sleep. When the old man wakes, the two agree to fish as partners once more. The old man returns to sleep and dreams his usual dream of lions at play on the beaches of Africa.

ANALYSIS

CHARACTERSSANTIAGO

Santiago is a poor old man, who lives alone in a simple hut without children. He has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish and has become the joke of his small village. He then endures a long and hard struggle with the marlin only to see his catch destroyed by sharks. Yet, he does not consider this great loss a defeat. He believes that “man can be destroyed but not defeated.” He is not defeated spiritually. He never loses his self-confidence or his faith.

Santiago’s battle is a battle of self-esteem and pride. His pride makes him go further into the sea than any other fisherman has dared to. The old man fights a heroic battle against the fish, holding on to the rope--even though he is cut and bruised by it, even though he wants to sleep and eat. He holds onto the rope as though his life depended on it. His determination to win is a matter of pride.

What Santiago desperately wants is to prove once more his skill, reassert his identity as a fisherman, secure his reputation in the community, and ensure for all time that Manolin will forever honor his memory and become his successor.

Santiago’s bodily pain makes him appreciate the marlin’s own suffering and endurance; he respects the fish as a worthy opponent, a brother in suffering.

Santiago is a resourceful man, a skilled fisherman, who knows the tricks of his craft, and who can use his imagination to help him in the most difficult times. For Santiago, what matters most in life is to live with great passion, to use his skills and nature's gifts to the best of his ability, to struggle and endure suffering and to accept inevitable destruction with dignity, and to pass on to the next generation everything of value that he has gained.

MANOLINManolin’s relationship with the old man helps

shed light on the Santiag’s character. His devotion to him highlights Santiago’s value as a person and as a fisherman. Manolin expresses his love and admiration of his master openly and repeatedly. He takes care of his affairs, even when his parents command him not to go for fishing with him and to seek luck in another boat. Manolin acts as a disciple of the old man, or as a son. He will be like his continuation after he dies. His zeal to learn from him and to benefit from his experience ensures that Santiago will live on.

THEMESStruggle

Santiago’s story is one of continual struggle against defeat. In spite of his bad luck for eighty-four days, he never admits defeat. Though destroyed at the end of the novella, he is never defeated. Instead, he emerges as a hero. Defeat is spiritual and psychological submission, which he does not do. It is in the struggle itself that man proves himself, and it is its struggle for life that makes the marlin worthy of Santiago’s admiration and respect.

Man and the Natural World The novella is the story of man’s

place within nature and the old man’s relationship to and understanding of the natural world. Santiago talks about the sea as though it were a woman, the birds as friends, the sharks as personal enemies. Both the old man and the fish are subject to the same eternal law: they must kill or be killed. As Santiago reflects when he watches the small birds fly towards the shore, where they will certainly meet the hawk, the world is filled with predators, and no living thing can escape the inevitable struggle that will lead to its death.

SufferingIn The Old Man and the Sea, the ability to

withstand physical pain is one of Santiago’s defining characteristics. Suffering is a necessary step in his battle with the fish. It adds intensity to the struggle, and commands a respect from the reader. The mental anguish of losing the fish to the sharks is surprisingly underplayed; this is a type of pain, it seems, that can be controlled by sheer willpower.

Other themes:- Friendship - Pride- Suffering

SETTING

The place is a small fishing village near Havana, Cuba, on the Gulf of Mexico. The time is the late 1940s.

POINT OF VIEW

Third person limited omniscient. Sometimes the narrator describes the characters and events objectively, that is, as they would appear to an outside observer.

However, the narrator frequently provides details about Santiago’s inner thoughts and dreams.

SYMBOLISMLions: The old man "no longer"

dreams about people – just the places, and namely the lions. The lions are a memory from his youth. Much of his struggle with the fish is about proving that he’s still there. The old man has a statement to make: he’s still around. In other words, his past, including the lions, isn’t just a distant memory.

Moreover, lions are strong creatures, predators, hunters, just as the old man hunts the marlin. The old man has to prove his strength, his prowess, and his abilities.

ALLEGORYAn allegory is a work of literature in

which events and characters represent other characters or events outside the work. Such work will have two meanings, a surface meaning and a deeper meaning.

Santiago is everyman, any human being and his story is everyone's story. The story turns out to be about man’s struggle with life, with life’s difficulties, and with suffering.

FABLEThe fable is a short narrative, frequently

employing animals and teaching a moral lesson. The Old Man and the Sea is like a fable because of its simple story about man’s struggle against life’s difficulties.

PARABLEIt is a short narrative giving a moral lesson.

It differs from the fable in that, unlike the fable, it does not use animals as characters.

The Old Man and the Sea is a parable about man’s struggle.