Santiago Through Nature In Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea

Karen Wu

January 21, 2016

Der Sarkisian

A Reflection of Santiago Through Nature in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is a story of the relationship between an old fisherman named Santiago and nature. For eighty-four days Santiago has set out to sea and returned empty-handed. On the eighty-fifth day, he set out determined to catch a fish. Santiago catches a marlin, but sharks attacked the fish leaving only scraps and bones. Santiago views the sea as the source of life and meaning. The old man has an unique relationship to and understanding of the natural world. He talks about the sea as though it is a woman and he dreams of lions. He views the birds and fish as his friends. The creatures and the natural world become lens to understand his character.

Santiago sees the sea as his life and meaning to live. He depends on the sea for survival, it provides

him with food, as a fisherman. The sea can give the old man happiness and sorrow. The narrator says, “...the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help….” (29). Santiago loves the ocean from it’s colors to it’s patterns in the waves. Just as when the old man did not catch a fish for eighty-four days, the other fishermen viewed him as “unlucky”. The sea redeemed his pride when he caught the marlin and so Santiago feels that he has proved himself. Santiago isn’t like other fishermen who only fish for money, but because he believes that fishing is his reason for living. Santiago is special because despite hardships what matters to him is to live following his beliefs and take pride on what he can do. Santiago does not only view the sea as his life, he also conceives the other animals as his friends.
Santiago views all animals equal to himself.

He holds a conversation with a little bird who landed on his skiff. The old man asks, “How old are you?...Is this your first trip?” (54). He talks to the bird like it could really understand what he is saying. The old man also does this to the fish, later in the story. Santiago has the marlin hooked on to the bait. Both Santiago and the fish tries to hold out against each other. Santiago feels as though the marlin is a worthy opponent and doesn’t want to kill it. “It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers [the marlin].” (76). Here again the reader gets the impression that Santiago views the animals on the same level as himself and gives the reader a sense of brotherhood. Santiago believes that he is just like any other creature in nature. One clearly sees that the old man is not like “most people“ who have no feelings for animals and think of them to be minor or less worthy than a human being. But Santiago still detests the sharks that attacked his boat and takes away the

marlin.
The shark is shown as a destruction or violence in the story. But even if the sharks take away the marlin, Santiago still remains the same as he was in the beginning. Hemingway uses the lions to tell the reader that Santiago has not given up. The narrator says, “He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk....” (25). Santiago dreamt of the lions in the beginning of the story and he dreams of it again after he comes back from sea with the remains of the marlin. The narrator says, “He [Santiago] was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.” (126) This shows that Santiago is the same person as before. He just doesn’t give up, he tries to make the best out of bad situations. Santiago remains undefeated.
Santiago struggles, endures and redeems his individual existence through nature. The old man's sense of morality and courage is seen through the lens of nature. Through the book you can see two types of people can be found. One, those that are active, adventurous and challenge themselves like Santiago. Two, those who are passive, anxious and don’t try anything new like the tourists in the end of the story who marveled at the bones of the marlin thinking that it was a shark. They didn’t care about the story behind getting the marlin. Through the story, Hemingway challenges the readers to take risks and dare them to go out to sea to catch their own marlin like Santiago.