Comparative Essay Between The Old Man and the Sea and True Grit
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, a simply written novel of an old man's singular struggle, while trying to catch a fish, against forces of the sea overpowering him and True Grit, by Charles Portis, a gripping western, placing you in the middle of the action during a girl's quest with two other men to get revenge for her father's murder, are two works united in several ways. Many similarities throughout both works appeared evident. Plot, theme, and characterization categorize those similarities.
First of all, in plot, the works share the same event progression. An early start, a determined drive, a final showdown, and an attempt to continue the achievement. The intentions were to simply accomplish no matter what the circumstance. The Old Man set out early in the morning as indicated here, '…he began to row out of the harbour in the dark.'; In True Grit, Mattie, a girl bent on avenging her father's death, Rooster, a federal marshal, and LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger, set off when, 'It was still dark outside and bitter cold although mercifully there was little wind.'; The dedication involved in the characters' pursuits becomes more evident later on. 'He is a great fish,'; the old man told himself, 'and I must convince him not to learn his strength…'; As it was also with the Mattie from True Grit. 'I knew both of them (Rooster and LaBoeuf) were waiting for me to complain or say something that would make me out to be a 'tenderfoot.' I was determined not to give them anything to chaff me about.'; Her intents were not purely superficial though. Her anger toward '… a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney,'; was a key factor in driving her to achieve her purpose. Finally, after toiling with the fish, the Old Man, '…took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and he put it against the fish's agony,'; in his last bout with the great fish. The same sort of event occurs at the same point in the story line in True Grit. 'Rooster said, 'Fill your hand you son of a bitch!' and he took the reins in his teeth and pulled the other saddle revolver and drove his spurs into the flanks of his strong horse Bo and charged directly at the bandits.
If you went off on a quest would you come back a changed person? “The Hero’s Journey isn’t just a pattern from myth. It’s the pattern of life, growth, and experience for all of us”(Harris and Thompson 49). Charles Portis is the author of True Grit, a western novel that takes place through the Indian Territory in Arkansas. In the novel True Grit, the character Mattie Ross, shows an interesting example of “The Hero’s Journey.” As we read we learn she is very outspoken and strong willed, she always wants things to be her way. Mattie shows us a great example of being very independent at the age of fourteen, but after her journey does she truly change as a person?
“The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us…The hero journey is a symbol that binds …. (Phil Cousineau).” Mattie Ross learns this in True Grit, by Charles Portis, when she experiences the death of her father. She says, ”…Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas and robbed him of his life and his horses and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band(11)”. Frank Ross, Matties’ father, who was shot to death, by a man named, Tom Chaney. Mattie Ross is just 14 years old in the 1870’s, she states, “Nothing is free in this world except the grace of god, you must pay for everything.(pg?)” Personal growth often comes at a great expense. She is in beginning of the separation stage in a hero’s journey, which consists of the call and threshold. Harris and Thompson define the call as, “…invites the initiate into the adventure, offers her the opportunity to face the unknown, an imbalance or injustice in her life”(50). Her father getting killed and Mattie getting vengeance, is her invite. This is followed by, the threshold, known as the jumping off point. She states, “We hit the river running…we came out some little ways down the river.”(107) She has now made it into the Choctaw Nation to assist in the pursuit, in the unknown world, “a different world full of dangers and challenges (Harris and Thompson 50)”. Next, is the initiation and transformation then, the return to the known world. You can see, Mattie encounters her call when her father was killed.
Mattie is constantly talking about a person having “true grit” throughout the book. Her definition of having true grit isn’t being courageous and she isn’t referring to dirt. Having true grit to Mattie means having a rough side and being fearless. After Mattie’s father was murdered she was determined to avenge her father’s death at any cost. Before Mattie could go out and search for the man who killed her father she needed to attend to some of her father’s business. She needed to talk to man named Stonehill about some ponies that her father had purchased right before he was killed. In this scene of the book Mattie shows her grit because Stonehill didn’t want to buy the ponies back and Mattie showed her persistence and her abrasiveness. Eventually Mattie says that she was going to get her lawyer involved and he offered her two hundred dollars but she didn’t take it. Mattie’s wanted three hundred and fifty for the ponies but she told Stonehill that she would settle for three hundred and twenty-five. Another scene where Mattie shows that she is fearless and has a great amount of grit is when she shoots Tom Chaney and the recoil of the gun sends her flying into a hole. During the fall Mattie manages to get stuck upright in a small hole she tries to push herself out with her left arm and she realized that her forearm was bent in an unnatural attitude and she notices that it’s broken. While she was down there she see...
The main character, Mattie, is a fourteen-year-old girl who shows time and time again that she has what it takes to get a job done. She shows all the traits that come with grit like courage and resilience, and she turns out to be a very successful woman later in life. Although grit comes with rewards, it also can have some drawbacks. For example, Mattie is extremely cocky and overconfident for her age. When she told Tom Chaney to surrender to her, it only caused her trouble. She was overpowered by Tom, and she ended up in a situation she could not get herself out of. If it was not for her partners, she would have ended up dead. Rooster is another character that shows grit. He never gives up on his commitment to Mattie, even when it puts his life in danger. He goes all the way to save Mattie from a snake infested pit, and then he proceeds to take her to the nearest hospital with her on his back for part of the time. Rooster’s grit is extraordinary, and it is the reason he is so successful as a
works of literature have tremendous amounts of similarity especially in the characters. Each character is usually unique and symbolizes the quality of a person in the real world. But in both stories, each character was alike, they represented honor, loyalty, chivalry, strength and wisdom. Each character is faced with a difficult decision as well as a journey in which they have to determine how to save their own lives. Both these pieces of literatures are exquisite and extremely interesting in their own ways.
When looking into works of literature, some stories seem to be similar to others. They can have a similar setting, point of view, theme, or sense of language and style. However, all of these points could be very different as well and could cover different theme or style. Flannery O’Conner’s “Good Country People” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” have some contrasting elements, such as their points of view and use of symbolism, but their similarities in the underlying theme, language, and the setting of these stories reveal how these two stories are impacted by education on both the individual and their family.
The movie uses the idea of what life used to be like for men and women, and then goes against that idea almost completely. Rather than having the woman character stay at home and clean and take care of the family while the Marshalls go hunt down the killer, the movie has the female lead going out and tracking down the killer as well. Women were not supposed to be independent, and they were not supposed to be able to do things on their own and provide for themselves. Instead, they were supposed to be very dependent on men, and very soft-spoken people. Mattie Ross is a prime example of how a woman can do more than what a society believes she can do. True Grit is a movie that shows how the lives of men and women have evolved since the Western era. In today’s society, the idea of gender roles does not really exist. Women are now being accepted to do things that only men were allowed to do, such as shooting guns and working outside of the
Both narratives compare as timeless tales of reputable heroes. They both include similar plots of long journeys back home. The main characters’ flaws are arrogance which is the source of many of their troubles.
Another, similarity these two stories have with each other is their themes. They shared powerful themes, such as how control can affect a person, and the insecurities one may have. ...
Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, the last of his fiction stories to be published before his death in 1961 (Lombardi). The novella is still celebrated to this day as a riveting tale of man versus nature under the most dire of circumstances. The story’s protagonist, Santiago, is a man with supreme determination and hope. His battle with the great marlin is an illustration of human strength, physically and mentally, at its finest. These qualities about him, along with the decisions he makes throughout the novel, give him similarities to Christ, while other elements of Hemingway’s prose can arguably serve as Christian symbolism as well.
The writing expertise of Hemingway and Faulkner, commonly referred to as Hemingwayesque and Faulknerian, are both styles that seem to parallel off of one another. One of the best ways to understand Hemingway is to read Faulkner, and vice versa. The obscurantism of Faulkner and the attentiveness of Hemingway foster their syntax and diction, as well as their similarities and differences. Faulkner displays Gothic remnants in Absalom, Absalom!, while Hemingway creates a more minimalist prose. Hemingway and Faulkner, as seen in The Sun Also Rises and Absalom Absalom! both possess uniquely different writing styles, while being able to hold the ability to parallel off of eachother's themes and diction.
There is never a simple key to any writer worth much attention, but in the case of Hemingway there is something that looks so like a key… that it cannot escape any informed and thoughtful reader’s notice" (O’Conner 153). Ernest Hemingway was one such author. Very rarely did he summarize statements, therefore the only way to solve his puzzle was to take it apart and examine each components. One of the hidden elements that the reader must analyzie closely is the parallel between Santiago and Jesus Christ. In the novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway creates connections between Santiago and Jesus Christ that adds religious coloration to the story.
Ernest Hemingway, viewed as an American hero of his time, wrote novels that enrich the minds' of his readers, creating a lasting image that goes far beyond the actual content of the story. But while reading Hemingway, I learned that his style was far from complex. Through pre-meditated sentence structure, he creates a rhythm that parallels the action in the story. He wants the sentences themselves to be easy to understand, so the reader can use more energy focusing on the symbolism Hemingway's stories create. He skillfully places symbols and metaphors throughout his novels. In his own writing, Hemingway doesn't explain in detail his metaphors. Rather, he forces the reader to discover the deeper meaning hidden in his stories. His use of the "Tip of the Iceberg Theory" leaves the reader searching deeper into Hemingway's writing to find its true meaning. [VGC1]
Individuals may look deep within to summon courage that is necessary to move past triumphs and tragedies. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago struggles greatly to search for hope in seemingly hopeless situations. The idea that people look deep within to summon courage is portrayed through the actions of Santiago, Manolin, and Manolin’s parents.
The Old Man and the Sea is a heroic tale of man’s strength pitted against forces he cannot control. It is a tale about an old Cuban fisherman and his three-day battle with a giant Marlin. Through the use of three prominent themes; friendship, bravery, and Christianity; the “Old Man and the Sea” strives to teach important life lessons to the reader.