In the first forty days a boy had been with him. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.
Please make a comment if the link is not working for you. I appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions. For more books please visit or site. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Pasadena , United States admin booksdrive. Around midnight, a pack of sharks arrives. Near-blind in the dark- ness, Santiago strikes out at the sounds of jaws and fins. Something snatches his club.
When the last shark tries to tear at the tough head of the marlin, the old man clubs the shark until the tiller splinters. No meat is left on the marlin. The old man spits blood into the water, which frightens him for a moment.
He settles in to steer the boat, numb and past all feeling. He notices the skeleton of the fish still tied to the skiff. He takes down the mast and begins to shoulder it up the hill to his shack.
It is terrifically heavy, and he is forced to sit down five times before he reaches his home. Once there, the old man sleeps. Analysis You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more? This interpretation is undermined, however, by the fact that Santiago finds the place where he is most completely, honestly, and fully himself only by sailing out farther than he ever has before.
But you have a right to. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. Everything in the world must die, and according to Santiago, only a brotherhood between men—or creatures—can alleviate the grimness of that fact. Santiago repeatedly reminds himself that physical pain does not matter to a man, and he urges himself to keep his head clear and to know how to suffer like a man.
After the arrival of the mako shark, Santiago seems preoccupied with the notion of hope. Hope is shown to be a necessary component of endurance, so much so that the novella seems to suggest that endurance can be found wherever pain and hope meet.
He soon realizes that it is silly not to hope, and he even goes so far as to consider it a sin. Ultimately, he overcomes the shark attack by bearing it. He goes to fetch coffee. Manolin waits for the old man to wake up, keeping his coffee warm for him so it is ready right away. When the old man wakes, he and Manolin talk warmly. Santiago says that the sharks beat him, and Manolin insists that he will work with the old man again, regardless of what his parents say.
He reveals that there had been a search for Santiago involving the coast guard and planes. Santiago is happy to have someone to talk to, and after he and Manolin make plans, the old man sleeps again. Manolin continues to watch over the old man as he sleeps and dreams of the lions. The promise of triumph and regeneration is supported by the closing image of the book. For the third time, Santiago returns to his dream of the lions at play on the African beaches. They also suggest the harmony—the lions are, after all, playing—that exists between the opposing forces of nature.
It is, rather, a hope that comes from ex- perience, of something new emerging from something old, as a phoenix rises out of the ashes. Indeed, the fishermen who once mocked him now stand in awe of him. The decimation of the marlin, of course, is a significant loss.
The sharks strip Santiago of his greater glory as surely as they strip the great fish of its flesh. But to view the shark attack as precipitating only loss is to see but half the picture. In the final pages of the novella, Hemingway employs a number of images that link Santiago to Christ, the model of transcendence, who turned loss into gain, defeat into triumph, and even death into new life.
Even the position in which he col- lapses on his bed—he sleeps facedown on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up—brings to mind the image of Christ suffering on the cross.
The very simplicity of the story suggests that it is a parable meant to illustrate a moral lesson. But the nature of the lesson is not obvious. The Hemingway scholar Philip Young offers a compelling answer to this question when he suggests that the novel is a parable, but one for life itself, and thus readers who search for other allegorical meanings inevitably reduce the grandeur of the text.
But, of course, alternate read- ings persist. Paraphrased below are several prominent interpretations of symbolism and metaphor in The Old Man and the Sea. Furthermore, Santiago is a former champion who wants to be champion again—in , Hemingway was in the same position. Santiago is the consummate craftsman. Manolin sails with Santiago for forty days, which is the same amount of time Christ was banished to the wilderness. Santiago reminds the reader of Christ as he bears the mast upon his shoulders and, further, as he collapses with his arms out and palms up in the pose of crucifixion.
Moreover, one could say that Santiago exhibits essential Christian traits of humility and charity. Like Christ, he also undergoes a great trial and returns to society having experienced something others cannot.
And, like Christ, the fisherman is a martyr of sorts. The question is whether these accumulated symbols amount to anything coherent. If anything counts in this world, if anything has meaning and moral significance, it is how one does whatever one does. This is especially true of solitary individuals in life-and-death situations. One must kill to live, one must die, and these actions have no otherworldly importance. Their meaning resides in how they are enacted.
Santiago acts bravely and truly, and kills like a Man, which gives meaning and purpose to his struggle. The final, material outcome of the struggle—that is, whether he returns home with the fish—becomes ir- relevant. The fish, too, has acted well and bravely and truly. It has been a brother to Santiago, and it has died like a Man indeed, Hemingway tells us the sex of the fish.
This reinforces the male-dominated worldview that Hemingway creates in the novella: it is no mistake that there are no notable female characters in The Old Man and the Sea. Whereas those novelists fash- ioned complex sentences to capture some of the most complex observa- tions ever transcribed in English, Hemingway felt sure that he could do the same using concise everyday speech.
In a interview in The Paris Review, Hemingway described this style of writing in the following terms: I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven- eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story. Hemingway went on to say that in The Old Man and the Sea I have tried to eliminate everything unnecessary.
So I leave that out. So I left that out. But the knowledge is what makes the underwater part of the iceberg. Fortunately, in The Old Man and the Sea, such slips are rare. 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. Does the old man represent the author nearing the end of his career?
Do the vicious sharks stand for cruel literary critics or the inevitably destructive forces of nature? While most readers agree that, as a parable, The Old Man and the Sea addresses universal life, the image of the lions playing on the African beach, which is presented three times in the novel, remains something of an enigma.
Like poetry, the lions are supremely suggestive without being tethered to a single meaning. Indeed, the only thing that is certain about the image is that it serves as a source of comfort and renewal for Santiago. He lay in the stern in the sun, com- pact and bullet shaped, his big, unintelligent eyes staring as he thumped his life out against the planking of the boat with the quick shivering strokes of his neat, fast-moving tail.
The old man hit him on the head for kindness and kicked him, his body still shuddering, under the shade of the stern. The scene above is instantly famil- iar, even to the many readers who have no experience hauling in fish. Hemingway loads the passage with carefully chosen sounds.
The passage also demonstrates the psychological depths Hemingway could access despite his incredible economy of language. Instead, using two well-chosen words, he hints at a depth of feeling that makes Santiago who he is. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. The moon runs away. There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. I do not understand these things, he thought.
This passage is found at the end of the third day related by the novella. As Santiago struggles with the marlin, he reflects upon the nature of the uni- verse and his place in it. The predatory nature of this exchange is inevitable, for just as hawks will continue to hunt warblers, men will continue to kill marlin, and sharks will continue to rob them of their catches. The cruelty of this natural order is subverted, however, because of the kinship Santiago feels for his prey.
Man can achieve greatness only when placed in a well-matched contest against his earthly brothers. To find glory, Santiago does not need to extend himself beyond his animal nature by look- ing to the sun or the stars. Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty.
He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff. The killing of the marlin, which occurs on the fourth day of the narrative, marks the climax of the novella.
Like the fish, the old man suffers something of a death on his way back to the village. Nevertheless, he returns to the village with his spirit and his reputation revitalized. You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, 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. As Santiago sails back to his village on the fourth day of the novella, tow- ing behind him the carcass of the decimated marlin, he tries to make sense of the destruction he has witnessed.
He feels deeply apologetic toward the fish, which he sees as too dignified for such a wasteful end. He attempts to explain to himself his reasons for killing the fish, and admits that his desire to hunt the fish stemmed from the very same quality that led to its eventual destruction: his pride. He then justifies his behavior by claiming that his slaying of the marlin was necessitated by his love and respect for it.
Indeed, when Santiago kills the fish, the loss of life is somehow transcendently beau- tiful, as opposed to the bold, senseless scavenging on the part of the sharks. The text affirms its hero to a degree unusual even for Hemingway. The marlin takes the bait, but Santiago is unable to reel him in, which leads to a three-day struggle between the fisherman and the fish. San- tiago nearly passes out from exhaustion but is able to gather enough strength to harpoon the marlin through the heart, causing him to lurch in an almost sexual climax of vitality before dying.
The village fishermen respect their formerly ridiculed peer, and Manolin pledges to return to fishing with Santiago. Santiago falls into a deep sleep and dreams of his lions.
What is the role of the sea in The Old Man and the Sea? The rich waters of the Gulf Stream provide a revolving cast of bit play- ers—birds and beasts—that the old man observes and greets. In fact, Santiago is so connected to these waters, which he thinks of good- humoredly as a sometimes fickle lover, that the sea acts almost like a lens through which the reader views his character. His strength, resolve, and pride are measured in terms of how far out into the gulf he sails.
When, at the end of the novella, Manolin states that he still has much to learn from the old man, it seems an expression of the obvious. Santiago is considered by many readers to be a tragic hero, in that his greatest strength—his pride—leads to his eventual downfall.
He has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish, and he is the laughingstock of his small vil- lage. Regardless of his past, the old man determines to change his luck and sail out farther than he or the other fishermen ever have before. His commitment to sailing out to where the big fish are testifies to the depth of his pride. Later, after the sharks have destroyed his prize marlin, Santiago chastises himself for his hubris, claiming that it has ruined both the marlin and himself.
In other words, the pride that leads to the destruction of his quarry also helps him earn the deeper respect of the village fisherman and secures him the prized companionship of the boy. Discuss religious symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea. To what effect does Hemingway employ such images? Christian symbolism, especially images that refer to the crucifixion of Christ, is present throughout The Old Man and the Sea.
Even the position in which Santiago collapses on his bed—he lies face down with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up—brings to mind the image of Christ on the cross. Hemingway employs these images in order to link Santiago to Christ, who exemplified transcendence by turn- ing loss into gain, defeat into triumph, and even death into life. What significance do the lions on the beach have for the old man? At the end of the story, is the old man defeated?
Why or why not? The Old Man and the Sea is, essentially, the story of a single character. Indeed, other than the old man, only one human being receives any kind of prolonged attention. Discuss the role of Manolin in the novella. Is he necessary to the book? When the novella opens, how long has it been since Santiago last caught a fish? How does Hemingway translate this word? They are full of pain B. They are blank with defeat C.
They betray the weariness of his soul D. They are the color of the sea 4. The fishermen regard him as a hero B. Most of the fishermen mock him C. Harry Truman B. Joe DiMaggio C. Dick Sisler D. A photograph of his wife B. The latest baseball scores C. A mounted fish D. Pictures 7. A great storm B. A beautiful woman C. Lions on the beach D.
A wrestling match 8. Why does Santiago not let his lines drift like the other fishermen? He is a stubborn man who prefers the old-fashioned way of fishing B. He believes it is imprecise, and he strives always to be exact C.
It is dangerous, as he might become tangled with another boat D. He is no longer young or strong enough to control a drifting line 9. What kind of fish does Santiago first catch? A tuna B. A marlin C. A shrimp D. A Portuguese man-of-war How does the old man know immediately the size of the great mar- lin he has caught? Soon after taking the bait, the fish jumps into the air, showing itself to the old man B. Santiago has encountered this fish before as a younger man C. He pulls and pulls on the line and nothing happens D.
During his great struggle with the marlin, what does Santiago wish repeatedly? He wishes he were younger B. He wishes for better equipment C.
He wishes that the fishermen who mocked him earlier were pres- ent to witness his victory D. He wishes that the boy, Manolin, were with him In what year was The Old Man and the Sea published?
As his first full day of fighting with the fish wears on, what does Santiago begin to think about his adversary? He praises the fish because it promises to bring a wonderful price at market B. This story in this pdf was written in in Cayo Blanco and got published in It is considered the last major work of Ernest Hemingway in his lifetime, which was published during his whole lifetime.
It was initially published in on September 1 st. It is based on the genre of Literary Fiction. It gains the awards like the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in the year and the award Nobel prize in literature in the year The story begins with an older man who fished alone in a skiff, who had gone eighty-four days without catching a fish, and the narrator illustrates this as also, which is the worst form of luck.
Throughout the reading, you can observe the life of a fisherman.
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