• The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

 Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1899, the son of

a doctor and a music teacher
 At age eighteen, he volunteered to serve as a
Red Cross ambulance driver in World War I
and was sent to Italy, where he was badly
injured by shrapnel
 In 1921, Hemingway moved to Paris where
he fell in with a group of American and
English expatriate writers that included F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein,
and Ford Madox Ford
 Major works
• The novels The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A
Farewell to Arms (1929) established him as a
dominant literary voice of his time
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• Across the River and Into the Trees (1950)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1952) for which he
won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and Nobel
Prize in 1954.
 The Old Man and the Sea
Key Facts
• Full title: The Old Man and the Sea
• Type of work: Novella
• Genre: Parable; tragedy
• Time and place written: 1951, Cuba
• Date of first publication: 1952
• Narrator: The novella is narrated by an anonymous narrator.
• Point of view: 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.
• Tone · Despite the narrator’s journalistic, matter-of-fact tone, his reverence
for Santiago and his struggle is apparent. The text affirms its hero to a
degree unusual even for Hemingway.
• Setting (time and place) · Late 1940s A small fishing village near Havana,
Cuba
 The Old Man and the Sea
Key Facts
• Protagonist : Santiago
• Major conflict: For three days, Santiago struggles against the greatest fish of his long
career.
• Rising action : After eighty-four successive days without catching a fish, Santiago
promises his former assistant, Manolin that he will go “far out” into the ocean. 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.
• Climax : The marlin circles the skiff while Santiago slowly reels him in. Santiago nearly
passes out from exhaustion but gathers enough strength to harpoon the marlin through
the heart, causing him to lurch in an almost sexual climax of vitality before dying.
• Falling action: Santiago sails back to shore with the marlin tied to his boat. Sharks follow
the marlin’s trail of blood and destroy it. Santiago arrives home toting only the fish’s
skeletal carcass. 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
lions.
 The Old Man and the Sea

Characters
Santiago -  The old man of the novella’s title, Santiago is
a Cuban fisherman who has had an extended run of
bad luck. Despite his expertise, he has been unable to
catch a fish for eighty-four days. He is humble, but
exhibits a justified pride in his abilities. His knowledge
of the sea and its creatures, and of his craft helps him
preserve a sense of hope regardless of circumstance.
The marlin with which he struggles for three days
represents his greatest challenge. Paradoxically,
although Santiago ultimately loses the fish, the marlin is
also his greatest victory.
 The Old Man and the Sea
Characters
The marlin -  Santiago hooks the marlin, which we learn
at the end of the novella measures eighteen feet, on
the first afternoon of his fishing expedition. Because of
the marlin’s great size, Santiago is unable to pull the
fish in, and the two become engaged in a kind of tug-
of-war that often seems more like an alliance than a
struggle. The fishing line serves as a symbol of the
fraternal connection Santiago feels with the fish. When
the captured marlin is later destroyed by sharks,
Santiago feels destroyed as well.
 The Old Man and the Sea
Characters

Manolin -  A boy presumably in his adolescence, Manolin is

Santiago’s apprentice and devoted attendant. The old man first
took him out on a boat when he was merely five years old. Due to
Santiago’s recent bad luck, His parents have forced the boy to go
out on a different fishing boat. Manolin, however, still cares
deeply for the old man, to whom he continues to look as a
mentor. His love for Santiago is unmistakable as the two discuss
baseball and as the young boy asks help from villagers to improve
the old man’s impoverished conditions.
 Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
THE HONOR IN STRUGGLE, DEFEAT & DEATH
From the very first paragraph, Santiago is characterized as
someone struggling against defeat. He has gone eighty-four days
without catching a fish—he will soon pass his own record of
eighty-seven days. Almost as a reminder of Santiago’s struggle, the
sail of his skiff resembles “the flag of permanent defeat.” But the
old man refuses defeat at every turn: he resolves to sail out
beyond the other fishermen to where the biggest fish promise to
be. He lands the marlin, tying his record of eighty-seven days after
a brutal three-day fight, and he continues to ward off sharks from
stealing his prey, even though he knows the battle is useless.
 Themes

PRIDE AS THE SOURCE OF GREATNESS & DETERMINATION

Many parallels exist between Santiago and the classic heroes of
the ancient world. In addition to exhibiting terrific strength,
bravery, and moral certainty, those heroes usually possess a tragic
flaw—a quality that, though admirable, leads to their eventual
downfall. If pride is Santiago’s fatal flaw, he is keenly aware of it.
After sharks have destroyed the marlin, the old man apologizes
again and again to his worthy opponent. He has ruined them both,
he concedes, by sailing beyond the usual boundaries of fishermen.
Indeed, his last word on the subject comes when he asks himself
the reason for his undoing and decides, “Nothing . . . I went out
too far.”
 Motifs
CRUCIFIXION IMAGERY
In order to suggest the profundity of the old man’s sacrifice and the glory
that derives from it, Hemingway links Santiago to Christ. Crucifixion
imagery is the most noticeable way in which Hemingway creates the
symbolic parallel between Santiago and Christ. When Santiago’s palms
are first cut by his fishing line, the reader cannot help but think of Christ
suffering his stigmata. Furthermore, the image of the old man struggling
up the hill with his mast across his shoulders recalls Christ’s march
toward Calvary. Even the position in which Santiago collapses on his bed
—face down with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up—
brings to mind the image of Christ suffering on the cross. Hemingway
employs these images in the final pages of the novella in order to link
Santiago to Christ, who exemplified transcendence by turning loss into
gain, defeat into triumph, and even death into life.
 Motifs
LIFE FROM DEATH
Death is the unavoidable force in the novella, the one fact that no living
creature can escape. But death, Hemingway suggests, is never an end in
itself: in death there is always the possibility of the most vigorous life.
The reader notes that as Santiago slays the marlin, not only is the old
man reinvigorated by the battle, but the fish also comes alive “with his
death in him.” Life, the possibility of renewal, necessarily follows on the
heels of death.
Whereas the marlin’s death hints at a type of physical reanimation,
death leads to life in less literal ways at other points in the novella. The
book’s crucifixion imagery emphasizes the cyclical connection between
life and death, as does Santiago’s battle with the marlin. His success at
bringing the marlin in earns him the awed respect of the fishermen
who once mocked him, and secures him the companionship
of Manolin, the apprentice who will carry on Santiago’s teachings long
after the old man has died.
 Motifs
THE LIONS ON THE BEACH
Santiago dreams his pleasant dream of the lions at play on the
beaches of Africa three times. The first time is the night before
he departs on his three-day fishing expedition, the second
occurs when he sleeps on the boat for a few hours in the
middle of his struggle with the marlin, and the third takes
place at the very end of the book. In fact, the sober promise of
the triumph and regeneration with which the novella closes is
supported by the final image of the lions. Because Santiago
associates the lions with his youth, the dream suggests the
circular nature of life. Additionally, because Santiago imagines
the lions, fierce predators, playing, his dream suggests a
harmony between the opposing forces—life and death, love
and hate, destruction and regeneration—of nature.
 Symbols
THE MARLIN
Magnificent and glorious, the marlin symbolizes the ideal
opponent. In a world in which “everything kills everything
else in some way,” Santiago feels genuinely lucky to find
himself matched against a creature that brings out the best
in him: his strength, courage, love, and respect.
 Important quotations
“… Just then the stern line came taut
under his foot, where he had kept the
loop of the line, and he dropped his
oars and felt the weight of the small
tuna’s shivering pull as he held the line
firm and commenced to haul it in. …”
 Important quotations
“…I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill
him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.”
Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he
thought. The moon runs away. . . Then he was sorry for
the great fish that had nothing to eat and his
determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for
him. . . 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. But it is good that
we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the
stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true
brothers…”