Saturday, 4 February 2017

The Old Man and The Sea - Ernest Hemingway






Old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway is a great novella with many philosophical ideas. Hemingway is very careful while portraying characters in his works. The novella is centered on one major character Santiago. As the title suggest Santiago is an old man. He is of 75 years old Cuban fisherman. Hemingway has presented the character of Santiago with strong determination will power, hope and confidence.

Novella is full of beautiful quotes like "Man can be destroyed, but not defeated".  and "Man is not made for defeat"


Many times, stories by Hemingway have much religious influence and symbolism. In the old man and the sea, by Ernest Hemingway, numerous occurrences in the life of Santiago the fisherman are similar to the incident recorded in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The names of the character translated from Spanish to English are just one of those many similarities.
                        In the story, there are many references to the crucifixion of Jesus. Santiago’s badly injured hand evokes the hands of the crucified Jesus and three other situations reinforce this theory first, Santiago’s marlin is approached by a pair of shovel nosed sharks.



  The old man and the sea is biblical allusion. There are multiple themes that the core of this book. An example that has been illustrated by Ernest Hemingway is Santiago being like Jesus. This shows that the story is biblical allusion. Overall throughout the book fish is the main catalyst of biblical allusion of Christianity. Finally the example of Santiago and his self sacrifice create a more precise system of moral dignity.
                      Santiago climbs the hill to his shack, with the mast on his shoulder, falling several times. This is an obvious reference to Christ’s struggle to carry the cross up the hill cavalry.

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