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The old man
When the old man found himself in the fight of his life he also found himself alone. Facing his challenges detached from any companion, Santiago and his introspection are a vital part of Ernest Hemingway’s Novel, The Old Man and The Sea. He is said to be one of the greatest writers since William Shakespeare. Despite being awarded a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize, Hemmingway still faced many critics and experienced many hardships. This story is about an old man who hooks a great fish which in turn takes him on a solo journey of self-discovery. In his greatest novel, Hemingway did nothing short of pouring his personal feelings, devotion, and eventual conquest into every detailed page. The protagonist, Santiago, is portrayed as a self-reflection
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He composed captivating novels about war, love and adventure. Born July of 1899, Ernest Hemingway grew up in the town of Oak Park, Illinois. His father was a physician who loved the outdoors and took Ernest on long camping and hunting trips in the north woods of Michigan (Broomall 11). This would later prove to play a monumental role in the shaping of Hemingway and his literary creations. According to Mark Cirino, Santiago’s quest is related not to the physical act of fishing but rather to the internal sustenance of mental solvency, mental control, sanity, and the mastery of consciousness” (40). His experience from war, love, injury, victory, and defeat had a major role in the emotional pages of The Old Man and the …show more content…
Hemingway knew the potential in the novel, he also knew it was prepared with everything he had. Nearly five hours in to the fight, Santiago says, “I wish I could see him only once to know what I have against me” (Hemmingway 46). Hemmingway, seen by many as the unlikely winner in a contest of struggle, held fast to the line of his novel. “The old man and the sea would be known to many as the defining work of Hemingway’s career” (Ernest). Through his experience, Santiago knows he has a valuable fish even though he hasn’t placed his eyes on it. Likewise, of all the novels, plays, and short stories Hemingway has created, he knows he has designed something
Because of the above, it is helpful to have some understanding of his theory. In Death in the afternoon, Hemingway (1932,191) points out that no matter how good a phrase or a simile a writer may have, he is spoiling his work out of egotism if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary. The form of a work, according to Hemingway, should be created out of experience, and no intruding elements should be allowed to falsify that form and betray that experience. As a result, all that can be dispensed with should be pruned off: convention, embellishment, rhetoric. It is this tendency of writing that has brought Hemingway admiration as well as criticism, but it is clear that the author knew what he was doing when he himself commented on his aim:
“Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write on true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know” (shmoop.com). Ernest Hemingway was an honest and noble man. His life was highlighted by his successful writing career that brought him fame, fortune, but ultimately loneliness. Ernest Hemingway fell into a hole of drinking and depression (lib.utexas.edu). It was odd for Hemingway to become so emotionally unstable after having a happy childhood, quality experiences, and a successful writing career.
Growing up in a rich atmosphere of culture, religion, and the sciences, Ernest Hemingway was always surrounded by different perspectives and thoughts of the world around him. There was a restlessness in him that wanted to discover and explore new things. Beginning as early as high school, his inner-writer began to emerge and his stories were often read aloud to the class as examples of what the other students should strive for. These stories are rarely spoken of nowadays, but display his early talent. While the majority of people are mostly familiar with Hemingway’s well-known works in his later years, some of his earliest pieces that he contributed to the world are often forgotten. (Reef 53).
Ernest Hemingway’s very first published novel isn’t some book you can critique as any ordinary ameteur literature, digging deeping we find that our friend Ernest here had a purpose more convoluted, yet clear, more abstract, yet concrete, and more public, yet personal, the story Ernest creates is his experiences, his characters, motifs, and themes all circulated around himself.
Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21st, 1899 to his parents, Clarence and Grace Hemingway. His family was wealthy, and would eventually move to a much bigger house with a music studio and a medical office to accommodate their occupational needs. His relationship with his mother was rocky at best, and he complained of her persistence in making him play the cello. In a book written by his sister, she reported that Grace had been obsessed with having twin girls, and had gone as far to dress young Ernest in girl’s clothing and call him “Ernestine”. This went on until he was six years old, and may explain his continuous focus on appearing masculine later in life. His relationship with his mother would set the tone for his future interactions women. He was brought up a man’s man, his father teaching him to hunt, camp, and fish from the very young age of four years old. These summer retreats would take place at his family’s summer home on Lake Walloon in Michigan. Spending much of his time outdoors as a boy instilled in him a great affinity for nature and sporting. At Oak Park and River Forest High School, he was very involved in sports and did w...
Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero, Illinois. Clarence and Grace Hemingway raised Ernest in the suburbs of Chicago and Northern Michigan. He spent most of his young years with his father, where he learned things that are necessary for a “man” to know. This included hunting, fishing, and appreciating the outdoors (“Early Years” 1). This being the origin of his notion that to be a man, you must follow masculine stereotypes.
The Old Man and the Sea is novella written by Ernest Hemingway in 1952. It tells the epic journey and struggles of the old fisherman, Santiago, and his younger fishing partner, Manolin. The story goes into detail the day to day life struggles that a fisherman off the coast of Africa endures. The majority of the story focuses on one particular trip out sea. In life, one will go through a number of stages in life. Infancy, Youth , Adulthood, and Old Age are all key stages. As one grows, they mature through these various stages. When one reaches old age, there is often a lot of doubt surrounding their lives. Serenity, and independence are often the two most questioned. These are some questions that Santiago has to ask himself as well.
...the death struggle in his mind - it is very explicit in books such as A Farewell to Arms and Death in the Afternoon, which were based on his own experience.
Poignant circumstances surrounded the composition of this novel, which bring out many of the above points. It is widely recognized that Hemingway was possessed of a turbulent personality and suffered from emotional depression. This was despite the fact that he enjoyed much critical acclaim. The Old Man and the Sea was written after a ten-year hiatus of public and critical approval. This period saw much of his work receive negative criticism in literary and journalistic circles. This affected Hemingway adversely and very deeply (Carey 9). Therefore, Hemingway's personal battle with seeming failure in his life's work and society's attendant criticism parallel Santiago's stoic resolve in the face of his neighbors' disdain. The author's struggles symbolically match those of Santiago and set the stage for the writing of this novel.
The Old Man and the Sea focuses its plot mainly on Santiago’s struggle against the marlin. Existentialism makes its appearance when Santiago chooses to pursue the marlin, stay with it the entire way, and fight tooth and nail at the end. “My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people,” is how Santiago explains his actions to challenge the fish (Hemingway 50). He mentions how he was born to be a fisherman, and by chasing the marlin, he will give his life the meaning for existence. Santiago also insists on staying with the fish until one of them is dead, which exemplifies his will to fulfill his goals in life. He endures obstacles such as nausea, cramps, and sleep deprivation because he does not want to give up and surrender his fate. When it comes down to the final struggle, Santiago pits all of the pain, strength, and pride he has left against the fish in order to bring it down. Despair begins to creep in when Santiago finds it hard to pull in the marlin, but he overcomes it with every ounce of will he has. He knows that it is up to him to create this important moment in his li...
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899. He was a writer who started his career with a newspaper office in Kansas City when he was seventeen. When the United States got involved in the First World War, Hemingway joined with a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. During his service, he was wounded, and was decorated by the Italian Government. Upon his return to the United States, he was employed by Canadian and American newspapers as a reporter, and sent back to Europe to cover the Greek Revolution. In the 1920’s, Hemingway was a member of expatriate Americans in Paris. In one writing of Hemingway, it reads, “In the nearly sixty two years of his life that followed he forged a literary reputation unsurpassed in the twentieth century” (LostGeneration). During this time, he wrote some of his most important and successful works of literature. Ernest Hemingway is one of the most influential writers of his time. One biography of him said, “His novels and short fictions have left an indelible mark on the literary production of the United States and the world” (TheEuropeanGraduateSchool).
The great stories behind The Old Man and the Sea are what make it so wonderful. Because of this novels success released in 1952, it helped Hemingway ring in the Nobel Prize for 1954 for Hemingway (Hurse). He had a way of writing a good hearted, high spirited hero, who seemed in many ways to be at one with nature and himself. It is believed that Hemingway conjured up the character Santiago from a 92 year old man who crossed to Florida with other Cuban refugees (Baker 910). This makes sense considering Santiago is the main character, who is of old age. His characters although having many great qualities, still had struggles. Santiago is the man of hour, when speaking of The Old Man and the Sea. H...
Born to Dr. Clarence Hemingway and music teacher Grace Hall Hemingway; Ernest Hemingway had abundant mental stimulus for growth throughout his juvenile advances. As early as the seventh grade there are records of his school work that showcase his early affinity for written art; namely one piece that illustrates not only his creativity but also passion for prudence and literature “Class Prophesies” which detailed what he believed his classmates would go on to do in their adult lives (Targeted News Service.) A large collection of Hemingway’s works are in the JFK Library where one could practically observe the development of his writing and style from kindergarten drawings to childhood essays to sonnets and short stories recognized in the literary publication of his high school. Ernest Hemingway embodied the characteristics of a gifted and talented student from a very young age as many would expect from one of the greatest literary minds in history.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway was written as Hemingway 's comeback book. Hemingway was a great writer, according to “11 Facts About Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea”, written by the website mental floss, before The Old Man and the Sea his last best book was For Whom the Bell Tolls which was written in 1940. Hemingway went a decade before he wrote and had another book published. In 1950 Hemingway published Across the River and Into The Trees, but it was not very good so people said that Hemingway was done with his years of good writing. In 1952 Hemingway published The Old Man and the Sea and it was his comeback book. Throughout the book, Hemingway uses Santiago and his long time out in the sea to show that it is important to never give up.
The old man and the sea is a novella about an old Cuban fisherman, Santiago, and his three-day battle with a giant Marlin fish. Throughout the novella, Santiago is portrayed in different perspectives. He is tough and refuses to give up at any time. He withholds the will to continue and the courage to overcome what is believed to be the impossible. His persistence and confidence, his absolute determination and his unique way of accepting the reality makes him a noble hero.