Brief Analysis of "The Old Man and The Sea"

            The novel “The Old Man and The Sea” one that I have read multiple times and still do not quite understand.  It is a brilliantly written masterpiece in my opinion and I enjoy it more each time I read it.  Most of the story takes place with an old man on a boat in an epic struggle with a giant marlin.  Let us go back a bit and provide some background for the story though. 

The main character is the old man, his name is Santiago and he has not caught a fish in 84 days.  He is quite diligent though and has not given up hope even though he has suffered such an unlucky drought.  There is also a young boy in the story and he seems to be the only person who still believes in the old man.  The old man had taught the boy how to fish and the boy has sort of become his apprentice so to speak.  The old man and the boy have a fairly normal relationship, they speak of fishing and baseball over dinner.  There is also a dream the old man refers to in which there are lions playing on a beach in Africa.  This is an important aspect to the story and comes up multiple times throughout it. 

This entire novel takes place over a five-day period and it is during day two that it really begins to get interesting.  The old man’s streak comes to an abrupt halt when he hooks a monstrous fish and the battle begins.  He often wishes the boy was there with him, but he stays focused on the task at hand.  He tries to see from the fishes perspective and wonders what he must be thinking.  He makes it clear that he plans on fighting this fish until one of them has died and he suffers many injuries before the war is ended. 

The old man has much respect and adoration for the fish, but that will not stop him from killing the marlin if the opportunity presents itself.  He finally catches a glimpse of the massive fish on the third day in the story.  It is at this point that the old man realizes that the fish is much stronger than he and he will need to find another strategy if he wishes to win this battle. He is also troubled at the thought of unworthy people being allowed to eat his noble prize, but this will not stop him. 

It is day four of the book when the battle comes to an end.   After the most intense struggle of the old man’s life he is finally able to kill the enormous marlin.  The fish is lashed to the side of the boat and the journey home begins.  At this point the old man is much further out at sea than he had planned to be because the fish had pulled the boat for quite some way.  Just as you think that the story has ended and the old man will ride home victoriously everything changes.  The fish is repeatedly attacked by sharks and try as he might the old man is unable to fight them all off and the body of his noble marlin is torn apart.  When he finally makes it home there is nothing left of his fish except for the bare bones.  The story ends with the boy insisting that the two of them fish together again and the old man falling asleep dreaming of the lions. 

The parallel between Santiago and Christ is unmistakable and have read many reviews stating such.  There are many ties linking Santiago to Christ and I have come to believe that is what Hemingway was shooting for.  There is a point in the story where Hemingway says that the old man makes a noise similar to that of a man having nails driven through his hands.  This is one of the more obvious portrayals of the old man being a martyr.  He also shows the old man carrying his mast across his shoulders much as Christ carried the cross.  There are many others, but this is meant to be a brief analysis.  The dream of the lions and the beach still perplexes me and I have found many different viewpoints of what this dream may have meant, but I will leave it to you to decide. This was a beautifully written portrayal of an unbelievable struggle between a man and a fish and will continue to be one of my favorite literary works.  

Modernism and Hemingway

             Ernest Hemingway was best known for his suspicious portrayal of war and those who were unlucky enough to survive it.  He had such a universal language in his writing and eliminated virtually all embellishment.  His style left so much to be unraveled by the reader’s perspective and it is quite easy to miss his meaning entirely.  The literary movement most closely linked to Hemingway is Modernism.  Though many of his writings fall into this period I believe he was much more involved in developing his own movement rather than falling into line with other authors of his time.  He lived such a disillusioned life and he poured his soul into his literature.  He was so close to war and the effects it brought on an individual that it actually took over his conscious.

            Modernists believe that all things are relative and that the world is how we perceive it to be.  They celebrate inner strength and rebel against many political and social views.  Hemingway absolutely believed in inner strength and virtually every protagonist of his will show this fact to be true.  Hemingway is constantly searching for the answer as to why the war happened.  What was the point, it only seemed to ruin men if they survived the horrors.  Hemingway believed that we all were in a perpetual struggle with death and ultimately we would all lose this war.  He wrote with such coldness such a lack of feeling that only makes the reader think more deeply about what he is actually meaning to say.  In the end his life inner battle with himself got the best of him and he was forced to end his life tragically. He had changed literature forever by the time of his death and will always be spoken of in high regard. 

Works Cited:

http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/29453.aspx

http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/oal/lit6.htm

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-article.html

Biography

Ernest Hemingway was one of the most influential writers of all time and he will not soon be forgotten for his contributions to literature.  Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and he died July 2, 1961 in Ketchum, Idaho.  He had a pretty normal beginning to his life he was raised conservative and spent summers on Walloon Lake in Michigan.  He went to a public high school where he worked on the school paper called the Trapeze.  He decided not to pursue a college education instead he took a job reporting for the Kansas City Star.  Hemingway desperately wanted to join the fight during World War I, but was not accepted due to his poor vision.  He was however, able to get close to the action by volunteering as an ambulance driver in December of 1917.  Shortly after his entry into the war Hemingway was badly wounded and was forced to leave the conflict and recover at a hospital in Milan.  This is where he met Agnes von Kurowsky and a wonderful romance had been sparked.  A Farewell To Arms was his literary depiction of this ordeal.  As with any war he was left scarred and upon returning home he realized ho difficult it would be to lead a normal life.  His family could not possibly understand the psychological turmoil he was forced to suffer through.  He worked many odd jobs and continued to write throughout this time.

Hemingway was married four times and was the father of three sons during his life.  His literary style was refreshing and completely different from others of his time.  He wrote in statements and short uttering’s which left much to the imagination. He did not believe in exaggeration or elaboration to make his point therefore anything unneeded was eliminated.  War in general was his primary inspiration, that and nature.  He seemed captivated almost by the complexity of war and it is evident in so many of his works.  He was a troubled man and even though he was a legend of his time he suffered such strife in his person life.  He traveled much throughout his life and covered several wars as a reporter.  His travels were put into his fiction and he developed characters that embodied his own values and perspective of live.

Hemingway wrote much throughout his lifetime and had too many short stories and novels to list.  Some of his best known publishing’s are In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, and so many others.  He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.  He died a decorated war hero and a literary genius that paved the way for many great authors.  Hemingway was a brilliant and troubled soul whom we should all hope to emulate in some way.  In the end his mental state was beyond repair and he took his own life by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.  Tragic as his death was, comfort can be found throughout his writings and we can rest assured that he died a great man and a hero. 

Sources:

http://www.biography.com/people/ernest-hemingway

http://www.lostgeneration.com/