Title: The Old Man And The Sea Author: Ernest Hemingway
Date Started: 7-Dec-2018 Date Finished:12-Dec-2018
The Old Man And The Sea is a short novel which is written by the famous American author Ernest Hemingway in the year 1951 and published n 1952.It was Hemingway’s last major work of fiction that was published during his lifetime. In 1953, the novel The Old Man And The Sea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and it was cited by the Nobel Committee that the novel had a great contribution in awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.
About the Author:
Ernest Miller Hemingway born on July 21,1899 and died on July 2,1961 was an American novelist ,journalist and a short-story writer.Hemingway created his own style of writing and gave a name called the iceberg theory of the theory of omission.When he became a writer he retained this style of writing, stressing or basically focusing on the surface elements without going deeper in the underlying themes. He believed that the deeper meaning of any story should be evident on the surface itself but it should shine implicitly. Hemingway produced many works n the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s.Many of his works are considered as classics in the American Literature.
THEME:
The theme of the story is” the honor in struggle, defeat and death”.
From the very beginning of the story we see that Santiago is characterized as a person who is struggling against defeat. He has gone 84 days without catching a fish but still the old man Santiago refuses to accept his defeat and decides to sail too far this time. On going too far he catches the big fish marlin and has 3days of brutal fight with the fish and his continuous efforts to ward off sharks restraining them from stealing his prey, even though knowing the battle is useless. It clearly depicts the tale of old mans continuous Struggle.
Many readers considers this tale as the chronicle of man’s battle against the natural world but to be accurate it is the tale of man’s place within nature. Both Santiago and the marlin displays quality of pride, honor, struggle and bravery and both are subject to the same eternal law, they must kill or get killed. In Hemingway’s novel the way he has potrait the real world and he depicts that the death is inevitable, but the best men will never give in to its powers. Indeed a man can prove this through the opponent he chooses to face. In the novel Santiago finds marlin worthy of a fight. Though at the end Santiago was destroyed but he was never defeated. Instead he emerges as a hero.
Thesis:
The author through his central character Santiago in the novel The Old Man And The Sea is reflecting or presenting a Hero who personifies honor, courage, endurance and faith. In the novel we see that the old man Santiago is proud saying that he will have to fish to eat at home, even though he knows he hasn’t any. He prefers hunger to shame. Also, he takes risk by going way too far in the sea. Ignoring the efforts invovled in his duel with the great fish “marlin” he catches the fish which simply justifies his courage. Santiago’s ability to endure the harsh life he lives is a result of his belief that “Pain does not matter to a man”. And lastly, in spite of hunger and pain and 84 days of bad luck the old man stills keep faith upon himself and goes for fishing daily hoping one day he will succeed.
Summary:
The Old Man and the Sea is a story about an aging Cuban fisherman Santiago who struggles against all odds to make his living. Its been eighty four days ,the old man Santiago has not caught any fish. At the beginning a young boy named, Manolin, shared the old mans bad fortune, but after some days the boys father tells his son to leave Santiago and go on another boat. From that time on, Santiago works alone. Every morning he rows his skiff out into the Gulf Stream, where the big fishes are but every evening he comes back home empty handed.
Manolin loves Santiago the old fisherman and pities him. Although unable to work for Santiago, he stills continues to bring him food and bait. When Manolin has no money of his own he begs to make sure Santiago has enough to eat. Over their evening meals of rice or beans, they both sit and talk about the good lucky days of past when they had caught the fish or they talk about the American baseball and the great Joe DiMaggio.
At night, when Santiago goes to sleep he dreams of lions on the beaches of Africa, where he had gone for sailing ship years before.
On the eighty-fifth day, before dawn Santiago rows out of the harbor in the cool dark .After leaving the land behind him he sets his lines.The lines sink deep into the water.As the sun rises,the old man sees other boats toward shore.Toward noon, a fish starts nibbling at the bait,which was deep down in the sea.Gently and carefully,Santiago plays the fish,which seems big because of its weight.At last,he expertly hooks the fish but he cannot pull it.Instead the marlin begins to pull the boat.
The old man braces himself,the line taut across his shoulders.Santiago is a skilled fisherman and knows many tricks of catching the fish,he decides to wait patiently for the wish to get tire
Santiago shivers n the cold night that comes after sunset.The fish lurches suddenly,pulling Santiago on his face which injures him and he gets a cut on his cheek.By dawn, the left hand of Santiago becomes stiff and cramps.Another strong tug on the line slices Santiago’s right hand.Santiago becomes hungry after a days struggle and quickly cuts strips from the tuna and chews them slowly.He waits for the sun to warm him and ease his cramped fingers.
That morning the fish jumps. Seeing it leap, Santiago comes to know that he has hooked the biggest marlin.Then the fish goes back again in the sea and turns to east. Santiago tries to forget his cut hand and his aching back,he remembers the days when people used to call him El Champeon and he used to wrestle with a giant man in Cenfuegos. Close to nightfall, a dolphin takes the small hook which Santiago has rebaited.He carefully lifts the fish trying hard not to jerk the line over his shoulder.After that he rests and cuts fillets from the dolphin.
The next morning, Santiago awakes and feels the line running through his fingers as the marlin jumps.Feeding line slowly,the old man tries to tire the marlin.After that the marlin slows down.Santiago washes his cut hands in the sea and eats one of the small fish.The marlin begns to circle around the boat.Santiago though faint and dizzy, tries to bring the marlin closer to the boat with each turn.Almost exhausted, he fnally draws his catch the marlin near the boat and kills the marlin with his harpoon.Tired Santago drinks water and lashes the marlin to the boat.The fsh was two feet longer than the boat. While Santiago is excited for the price he will get for marlin but at the same time is concerned that the people who will eat the fish are unworthy of its greatness.
As Santiago sails for home,the marlin’s blood leaves a trail in the sea and attracts sharks.Mako shark is the first one to attack.It comes in fast to slash with raking teeth at the dead marlin.With the help of the harpoon,Santiago manages to kill the shark. But the Mako sinks in the sea carrying the harpoon with it leaving the marlin mutilated and bloody.Santigo knows the scent will spread in the sea causing more predators to attack.Later he sees two shovel-nosed sharks closing in.He kills one of them with his knfe and the other too and watches the scavengers slide down into the deep water. The other sharks comes at sunset.He fights various predators as the best he can.Although he kills various sharks but more and more appear with time. At last the sharks eats up the whole marlin’s meat leaving behind only the skeleton, tail ad the head. Santiago weary and tired criticizes himself for sacrificing his great opponent, the marlin.
All lights are out when he sails into the little harbor. Santiago arrives back home after three day journey, he is so tired that he just stumbles back to his shack and there he sleeps deeply.
The next morning, many fishermen gathers around the boat of Santiago and watches the remains of the giant marlin its skeleton,eighteen feet long from nose to tail,it was still lashed to the boat. A tourist watches the skeleton of giant marlin and mistakes it with a shark.
When Manolin finds Santiago sleeping in his bed, he starts crying because he was very much worried about Santiago since last three days. Manolin brings the old man coffee and daily paper and watches him sleep. When the old man Santiago wakes up, Manolin tells Santiago that he is not unlucky and from now on he will go fishing with him only like before. The old man agrees to it and goes back to sleep and dreams of his usual dream of lions.
“He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy.”