Santiago Hemingway’s Uncommon Code Hero

Santiago Hemingway’s Uncommon Code Hero

Ernest Hemmingway’s Santiago in “The Old Man and the Sea” meticulously fits Hemmingway’s code of heroes and accurately represents a classical tragic hero as put forth by Aristotle. Santiago a skilled professional fisherman is endowed with typical Hemmingway heroic characteristics of humility, courage perseverance, experience and pride. However, Hemmingway uses simplistic language, uncommon settings and meek characters, to birth a tragic hero that more than just intrigues diverse audiences. In addition to depicting the tragic flaw of excessive pride, Hemmingway emphasizes that the greatest value of life’s conflicts are the lessons it teaches and enduring with determination and grace is greater gain than focusing on merely wining.

In the beginning of the novel, Santiago appears to be less than a hero. Usually a hero is thought of as a great leader. However, at first glance Santiago is an underprivileged old man, who lives in a shack that needs the aid of a young boy. But this an underlying twists in plot by Hemingway that foreshadows his theme of heroism. Ironically, but most importantly to the plot of the story, Santiago is a reputable fisherman who has met an “unlucky strike”. According to Dr Wheeler, one trait of Hemingway’s hero is that he stands strong in the event of life’s trials by competing with sincerity and determination regardless of the raising level of difficulties (Dr Wheeler’s homepage 1). In order to set up Santiago to fit his code of heroes, Hemingway writes that Santiago is made fun of by other fishermen but he is determine that he will prove he can still catch big fish (Hemingway16). Santiago is courageous and an experience fisherman, willing to go out into the open se...

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