THE OLD MaNn aND TH» SBA: Hemingway s

Tragic Vision of Man

CLINTON S. BURHANS, JR.
Michigan Stare University

N
Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway uses an cffective metaphor
t o describe the kind of prose he is trying to write: he explains that
"if a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about
he may omit things that he knows and the rcader, if the writer is
writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly
as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of
an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."
Among all the works of Hemingway which illustrate this meta-
phor, none, I think, does so more consistently or more thoroughly
than the saga of Santiago.) Indeed, the critical reception of the novel
has emphasized this aspect of it: in particular, Philip Young, Leo
Gurko, and Carlos Baker have stressed the qualities of The Old Man
and the Sea as allegory and parable." Each of these critics is especial
ly concerned with(two qualities in Santiago-his epic individualism
and the love he feels for the creatures who share with him a world
of inescapable violence-though in the main each views these quali-
ties from a different point of the literary compass. Young regards
the novel as essentially classical in nature;° Gurko sees it as retiecting
Hemingway's romanticism;' and to Baker, the novel is Christian
in context, and the old fisherman is suggestive of Christ."
Such interpretations of The Old Man and the Sea are not, of
course, contradictory; in fact, they are parallel at many points. All
are true, and together they point to both the breadth and depth of
the novel's enduring significance and also to its central greatness:
Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Ajternoon (New York, 1932), p. 183.
On the other hand-though not, to me, convincingly-Otto Friedrich, "Ernest Heming-
way: Joy Through Strength," The American Scholar, KXVI, 470, 513-530 (Autumn, 1957),
sees Santiago's experience as little more than the result of the necessities of his profession.
Philip Young, Hemingway (New York, 1952), p. I00.
Leo Gurko, "The Old Man and the Sea," College English, XVII, I, 14 (Oct., 1955).
Carlos Baker, Hemingway (Princeton, 1956), p. 299.

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 The Old Man and the Sea 447
like all great works of art it is a mirror wherein every man perceives
a personal likeness. Such viewpoints, then, differ only in cmphasis
and reflect generally similar conclusions (that(Santiago represents
noble and tragic individualism revealing what man can do in an
indifterent universe which defcats him, and the love he can feel for
such a universe and his humility before it. )
think, a deeper level of sig-
True as this is, there yet remains, I the ultimate beauty and the
nificance, a decper level upon which
structure fundamentally rest.
dignity of movement of this brilliant
On this level of significance, Santiago is Harry Morgan alive again
Morgan in a sudden and unex-
and grown old; for what comes to
old fisherman's
pected revelation as
he lies dying is the mnatrix of the
climactic experience. ^ince 1937, Hemingway has been increasingly
concerned with the relationship between individualism and inter-
is the culminating ex-
dependence; and The Old Man and the Sea
reflection of Hemingway'smature view
pression of this concern in its
of the tragic irony of man's tate: that no abstraction can bring man
and interdepend-
an awareness and understanding ot the solidarity learn it, as it has al-
ence without which life is impossible; he must
the agony of active and isolated in-
ways been truly learned, through
dividualism in a universe which dooms such individualism.

II
(Throughout The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is given heroic
proporions. Heis "a strange old man,*still powerful and still wise
inall the ways of his trade. After he hooks the great marlin, he
"what a man can
fights him with epic skill and endurance, showing
do and what a man endures" (p. 64). And when the sharks comne
he is determined " 'to fight them until I die'" (p. I16), because he
knows that " a man is not,made for defeat. A man can be
. . .

destroyedbut not defeated P. I03).

This direction in Hemingway's thought and art has, of course, been pointed out by
several critics, particularly by Edgar Johnson in the Sewanee Review, XLVIII, 3 (July-Sept.,
in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass., 1942). With
1940) and by Maxwell Geismar in Writers
about Hemingway is that he has
prophetic insight, Johnson says that "the important thing
earned his philosophy, that he has struggled to reach it, overcome the obstacles to attain-
For the good, the gentle and the
ing it.... He has earned the right to reject rejection.
make a separate peace, defeat
brave, he now tells us, if they do not try to stand alone and
is not inevitable. His life-blood dripping into the bottom of the boat, Harry Morgan
realized it at the end of his career. Philip Rawlings realized it in the blood and terror
of a dying Madrid. Hemingway has realized it there too, and
and tragedy and splendor even
new and more vital career."
the realization may well be for him the very beginning of a
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (London, 1952), p. 10o.

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 American Literature

448 SantiagogainS a
big fish,
and in catchinghis
his relationship to
thc rest or
Insearchingfor into himsclf and into the old hsher-
deepenedinsight and implicit in
insight as pervasive in Harry Morgan's.
created life-an and explicit
mans experienc as i t is sudden thinks of it "as
feminineand
Santiago wild
far out on the sca,
As he sails withheld great favours, and if she did
gave or 27).
assomething that she could not help them) (p.
because
orwicked things it was on his line and for other creatures who share
(For the bird who rests
a capricious and violent life, the old man feels friend
him such wild ducks
With
and love (pp. 26, 46). And
when he sees a flight ofthe sea'" (p.
ship was ever alone
on
the old man knows "no
man
go ovet
that he
59 feel his deepest love for the
creature

(Santiago comes to catch not alone

himself hunts and kills, the great ffsh which he must
even more for
his pride and his profession.
need but
Tor physical the old man catches;
marlin is unlike the other fhsh which
The great
necessity. Heis unlike the other
he1s aspiritual morethan a physical the old for and man, dur-
worthy antagonist
that he is a
hsh,too, in
to pity the marlin and then to
comes
ing his long ordeal, Santiago senses that there
can be no
love him. In the end he
respect and to the condi-
struggle between them, that
victory for either in the equal them one (p.
which have brought them together have made
tions comne
And so, though he kills the great fish, the old man has
92).
and his brother; sharing a lite which is a
to love him as his cqual violence and in
mixture of incredible beauty and deadly
capricious bound to-
are both hunter and hunted, they
are
which all creatures

relationship.)
getrer iTUS MOst primal with the
the heroicindividualism of Santiago's struggle
(Beyond
sharks, however, and beyond the
great hsh and his fight againstthe comes to feel for the noble crea-
which he
loveand the brotherhood
dimension in the old man's ex-
ture he must kill, there 1s a further
to these their ultimate significance.
For în kit
perience which gives
the sharks, the old man
the marlin and in'losing him to
ing great
sin into which men inevitably fall by going far out be
learnsthe the first night
life. In
yond their depth, beyond their true place in
old man beginsto feela lone-
of his struggle with the great fish, the
liness and a sense almost of guilt for the
way in which he has caught
he feels no pride of
him (p. 48) ; and after he has killed the marlin, to teel al-
accomplishment, no sense of victory. Rather, he seems
 The Old Man and the Sea
and hin nat he w a
most as though he has betrayed the great fish; "I an only better Per y
thanhim through trickery," he thinks, "and he meant me no harm"
(p. 99). e +icery
Thus, when the sharks come, it is almost as a thing expected,
almost as a punishment which the old man brings upon himself in
goingfar out beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world")
(P. 48) and there hooking and killing the great fish. For the com-
ing of the sharks is not a matter of chance nor a stroke of bad luck;
the shark was not an accident"_(p. 99). They are the direct re-
sult of the old man's action in killing the fish. He has driven his
harpoon deep into the marlin's heart, and the blood of the great fish,
welling from his heart, leaves a trail of scent which the first shark
follows.He tcars huge picces from the marlin's body, causing more
blood to seep into the sea and thus attract other sharks; and in kill-

ing the hrst shark, the old man loses his principal weapon, his har-
poon. Thus, in winning his struggle with the marlin and in killing
him, the old man sets in motion the sequence of events which take
from him the great fish whom he has come to love and with
whom
heidenifies himself completely. And the old man senses an in-
evitability in the coming of the sharks (p. 101), a feeling of guilt
which deepens into remorse and regret. "I am sorry that I killed
the fsh. . (p.103),he thinks, and he tells himself that"Youdid
not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for tood. . . . You
killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman" (p. Io5)
E a r l i e r , before he had killed the marlin, Santiago had been " °glad

(P. 74). It is enough, he

"

we do not have to try to kill the stars'

had felt, to have to kill our fellow creatures. Now, with the in-
out
evitable sharks attacking, the old man senses that in going tar
he has in effect tried "to kill the sun or the moon or the stars." (For
him it has not been "enough to live on the sea and kill
our true

brothers"; in his individualism and his need and his pride, he has
gone far out "beyond all people," beyond his true place in a capri
Cious and indifferent world, and has thereby brought not only on
destruc-
himself but also on the great ish the forces violence and
of
fish. ," he declares.
tion.)I shouldn't have gone out far,
so . .

And when
"Neither for you nor for me. I'm sorry, fish'" (p. I10).
the sharks have torn away half of the great marlin, Santiago specaks
he said. Fish that you
again to his brother in the sea: **Half-fish,

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 450 American Literature

were. am sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both (P

16).
The old man's realization of what he has done is refiected in his
apologies to the fish, and this realization and its implications arc
cmphasized symbolically throughout the novel. From begunning to
end, the theme of solidarity and interdependence pervades the action-
and provzdes the structural framework
herokt tndividualism and his love for hiswithin
fellow
which the old man
uncton and which gives them their ultimate creatures appear anu
gone eighty-four days without acatch, Santiagosignificance.
has
Having8
ent upon the become depend-
young boy, Manolin, and upon his other friends in his
village. The boy keeps up his confidence and hope, brings him
dothes and such
fresh bait for his necessities as water and
soap, and sees that he has
man food, and
fishing. Martin, the restaurant owner, sends the old
Perico, the wineshop owner, gives him
so that he
can read about newspapers
baseball. )All of this the old man
gratefully and without shame, accepts
meaning.) "He was
knowing
too simple to wonder
that such help is not de-
humility. But he knew he had attained it andwhen he had attained
he knew it was not
disgraceful and it carried no loss of true
pride" (Pp. 9-10).
Santiago refuses the young
boy's offer
leave the boat his
to
have made him go in and return parents
to his, but soon after he hooks the
great marlin he wishes
with him. And after theincreasingly
and often that the
sharks come and he wonders boy
were

been a sin to kill the if it had

great fish, the old man thinks that, after all,
"everything kills everything else in some way. Fishing kills me
exacdy as it keeps me alive." But then he remembers
fishing but the love and care of another human being thatthat it is himnot

alive now; "the boy keeps

keeps me alive, he thought. I must not deceive
myself too much"
(p. 106).)
(As the sharks tear from him more and more of the great fish and
as the boat gets closer to his
home, the old man's sense of his rela
tionship to his friends and to the boy deepens: "I cannot be too far a ho hin
out now, he
thought. I hope no one has been too worried. There
is only the boy to worry, of course. But I am
sure he would
ad0
confidence. Many of the older fisherman will have g h
worry. Many others On
he thought. I live in a good town" (p.
too,
he awakens in his shack and talks with theI15)./In the cnd, when n thin kA that,
i t is pleasemi
boy, he/notices "how
pleasant it was to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only
t o h a s e L o m e s

Totalk foe
apant e m

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 The Old Man and the Sea 45
This time he accepts without
tohimself and to the sea"(p. 125).
insistence on returning to his boat, and
any real opposition the boy's alonc.
far out
he says no more about going interdependence is rein-
This theme of human solidarity and
man knows well
Baselball, which the old
forced by several symbols. thinks and talks about constantly, is, of
and loves and which he team sport and one that contrasts im-
course, a highly developed far more individualistic
with the relativcly
portantly in this respect t hn
o s O t basekað
fishing usually found in Hemingway's
bullfighting, hunting, and himself b
tells that "now is no time to think of m
stories.Although he throughout his
bascball" the game is in Santiago's thoughts
Xp. 37), results in the Gran Ligas.
and he wonders about cach day's
ordeal, of Joe
the old man's hero-worship
Even more significant is
Yankee outfhelder. DiMaggio, like Santiago,
DiMaggio, the great and in baseball terms an old
was a champion,
a master of his craft,
handi-
of his glorious career severely
one, playing out the last years his heel. The image of Di-
a bone spur in
capped by the pain of to Santiago; in his strained
source of inspiration
Maggio is a constant
left hand he, too, is an old champion
back and his cut and cramped himself that he
he tells
who must endure the handicap of pain; and
and.. be worthyof the great DiMaggio
"must have confidence
.

with the pain of the bone spur in

who does all things, perfectly
even

his heel" (p. 66). had qualities at least as vital to the Yankees as his
But DiMaggio
his own time and
and individual brilliance. Even during
courage
since then, many men with expert
knowledge of baseball have con
Williams of
outfielders-especially Ted
sidered other contemporary
or superior in terms
the Boston Red Sox-to be DiMaggio's cqual
achievement. But few men have
ever
of individual ability and received as a
renown which DiMaggio
carned the affection and the
his individual greatness
"team player"-one who always displayed more im-
his qne to whom the team was always
as part of team,
value as a
than himself./ It used to be said of DiMaggio's
portant he was
"team player" that with him
in the line-up, even when
his heel, the Yankees were two
runs
handicapped by the pain in
field. (From Santiago's love of
ahead when they came out on the
bascball and his evident knowledge
of it, it is clear that he would
And when Manolin r e
be aware of these qualities in DiMaggio.

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 452 American Literature
marks that there are other men on the New York team, the old man
replies:" 'Naturally. But he makes thedifference
The lions which Santiago dreams about "Xp.
and his
17).
description in
terms of Christ
symbols further suggest solidarity and love and hu-
mility as opposed to isolated individualism and pride. So
and lovely a symbol is the drcam of the lions that it would evocative
if not
impossible to its literal
be foolisb
attempt definition. Yet it seems sig-
nihcant that the old man
beasts," a lion proud anddrcams not of a single lion, a "king of the
which Francis powerful and alone, like the one from
Macomber runs in terror, but of several
who come down to a beach in
the young lions
only drecamed of places now and eveñing to play together./ "He
of the lions on the
played like young cats in thc dusk and he loved beach. They
boy (p. 22).(It seems also significant that them as he loved the
dreamed of storms, nor of the old man "no
women,
great fish, nor fights, nor contests nor of great longer
of occurrences, nor of
21-22)-that is that he no strength, nor of his wife" (pp.
like the one which longer dreams of great
the marlin. brings violence and destruction individualistic deeds
Instead, the lions are "the main on him and
on
65), and they evoke the thing that is left"
(p.
old man returns after solidarity and love and peace to which the
(These qualities hunting and killing and
losing his great
the old fisherman as further emphasized by the symbolic valuefish.)
are
he carries the mast of
shack and as he lies crosslike up the hill to his
exhausted on his bed. His
terribly wounded in catching the great marlin and
hands have been
sharks, and as he lies in fighting the
his arms out sleeping "face down on the
like and straight and the
palms up" (p. newspapers with
suggests that if the old man has been 122), figure is Christ-
his
of a crucified by the forces
capricious and violent
universe, the
the
humility and love of Christ ánd the meaning of his experience is
imply. ) interdependence which they
(Such, then, the are
world of violence and qualities which deine man's
death indifferent to true place in a
context which
gives the experience of the oldhim, and they are the
significance as the
reflection of fisherman its ultimate
of the human
condition-his tragicHemingway's culminating concept
standing that "it is enough to live vision of man. For in his under-
brothers," the fellow creatures who on the sea and kill our true
loves, the old man is share life with
expressing Hemingway's us and whom he
conviction that de-
 The Old Man and the Sea
453
Spite the tragic necessity of such a condition, man has a place in the
world. And in his realization that in
going alone and too tar out,
"beyondall people in theworld," he has ruined
bothfeeling thatand
himselt
also the great fish, the old man reflects Hemingway's in
his individualism and his
pride and his need, man inevitably goes
beyond his true place in the world and thereby brings violence and
destruction on himself and on others(Yet in going out too far and
alone, Santiago has found his greatest strength and courage and dig-
nity and nobility and love, and in this he expresses Hemingway's
View of the ultimate tragic irony of man's fate: that only through
the isolated individualism and the
pride which drive him beyond
his true place in life does man develop the qualities and the wisdom
which teach him the sin of such individualism
and pride
bring him the deepest understanding of himself and of his andplace
whichin
the world.)Thus, in accepting his world for what it is and in learn-
ing to livé in it, Hemingway has achieved a tragic but ennobling
vision of man which is in the tradition of Sophocles, Christ, Melville,
and Conrad.
III

It is not enough, then, to point out, as Robert P. Weeks does, that

from the first eight words of The Old Man and the Sea... we are
squarely confronted with a world in which man's isolation is the
most insistent truth."8 True as this is, it is truth which is at the
same time paradox, for Santiago is profoundly aware that "no man
was ever alone on the sea." Nor is the novel solely what Leo Gurko
feels it is--"the culmination of Hemingway's long search for dis-
engagement trom the social world and total entry into the natural"
(P. 15). If the old man leaves society to go "far out" and "beyond
all people in the world," the consciousness of society and of his re-
lationship to it are never for long out of his thoughts; and in the
end, of course, he returns to his "good town," where he finds it
pleasant "to have someone to talk to instead of speaking only to
himself and to the sea." To go no further than Santiago's isolation,
therefore, or to treat it, as Weeks does, as a theme in opposition to
Hemingway's concern with society is to miss the deepest level of
significance both in this novel and in Hemingway's writing gener
ally.
Robert P. Weeks, "Hemingway and the Uses of Isolation," University of Kansas City
Review, XXIv, 125 (Winter, 1957).
 American Literature

454 direction of
the true
shown,
Johnson has and especialy
as Edgar
For, surely,thought from the beginning
and art particular
of any
temingway's in terms
society-not
a return to
Sincc r937 has been sense of
human solidarity
political doctrine, but in the broad
sOC1al or
"a separatc peace
interdependence. If he began by making old
and
and by going, like Santiago, "far out" beyond
socicty, like the
Morgan's "no man
man, too, he has come back, through Harry "no man is an 1s1and,
alone, Philip Rawlings's and Robert Jordan's
"

with a deepened
and Santiago's "no man is ever alone on the sea," awareness ot his
insaght into its nature and values and a profound
relationship to it as an individual.
In the process, strangely enough-or perhaps it is not strange at
all-he come back from Frederic
has Henry's rejection of all ab-
stract values to a reiteration for our time of mankind's oldest and
noblest moral principles. As
James B. Colvert points out, Heming-
way is a moralist: heir, like his world, to the destruction by science
and empiricism of
nineteenth-century value
equally these assumptions and the principle assumptions,
he rejects
underlying them-that
intellectual moral abstractions
existence. Turning from the possess independent supersensual
in the actual world of resulting nihilism, he gocs to experience
the world which hostility, violence, and destruction to find in
it is
destroyed the old values a basis for new ones-and
precisely here, Colvert suggests, in reflecting the central moral
problem of his world, that Hemingway is a
But out of this concern with
action and
significant moralist.
universe, Hemingway conduct in a naturalistic
has not evolved
has reaffirmed man's. oldest new moral values; rather, he
and
interdependence. It is ones-courage, love,
their basis which is humility, solidarity,
supernaturalism abstraction but hard-won new-a basis not in
or
perience in a naturalistic universe which is at through actual ex-
and his values. best indifterent
"we are part of
Hemingway tells us,
a
as E. M. man
Halliday observes, that
to
universe oftering no
This assurance beyond the
which he development
wrote
in
Hemingway's thought and grave,
in 1939 and is further
art
politan, CXLVI, which, prompted by the recent illustrated in a
of a 4, 78-83
(April, 1959) has reprinted. Cuban revolution, story
tion toSpanish-speaking
Cosmo-
the cause of young man and a girl who have "Nobody Ever Dies!" is the
kiled by social liberty in a given themselves with story
revolt selfless
confidence.governmental
in Cuba. The young man devo-
forces, and the girl faces the is
It was the
hundred years before in same torture
confidence another girl her of
questioning trapped and
the market with "a strange
age had felt a little
James B. Colvert, "Ernest place of a town called more than five
XXVI, 372-85 Hemingway's Rouen."
(Nov., 1955). Morality in Action," American
Literature,
 455
The Old Man and the Sea
of life by a pragmatic ethic spun
are to make what we can
ana we cognizance that the
of himself in full and steady
Dravely out man
end is darkness.""
realized symbolism and irony," then, Heming-
Through perfectly spun out
of an old fisherman's
way has beautifully and movingly its basis in an essentially
a pragmatic ethic and
great trial just such and in this reaffirmation of man's most cher
tragic vision of man; reafirmation in the terms of our time rests
Ished values and their The Old Man
and the
significance of
the deepest and the enduring
Sea. and Irony,"
American Litera-
Ambiguity: Symbolism
E M. Halliday, "Hemingway's
(March, 1956). applicable to The
ture, XXVIII, 3 ironic method is particularly
on Hemingway's
and
Halliday's comment between expectation
and fulilment, pretense
ironic gap the way things are
Old Man and the Sea:"the and the message received,
the message sent theme
fact, intention and action, are--this has been
Hemingway's great
things
thought o r ought to be
and the way do it artistic justice"| (ibid.,
has called for an ironic method to
from the beginning; and it
p. I5).
 The Old Man and the Sea
LEo GuRKo
and
MosT of Hemingway's novels empha-
the Virgen de Cobre" (The Old Man
but these
size what men cannot do, and define the Sea, Scribner's, 1952, p. 71),
the world's and
after the event
limitations, cruelties,
in evil. The Old Man
or built-
are rituals that come
it.
and the Sea is re- have nosignificant relationship with
markable for its stress on what men can and bare of
a n d on the world as an arena where
In this universe, changeless
dvinity, everyone has his fixed role to
heroic deeds are possible. The universe play. Santiago's role is to pursue the gred
inhabited by Santiago, the old Cuban marlin, "That which I was born for"
fisherman, is not free of tragedy and pain ( p . 44), he reflects; the marlin's is to live
but these are transcended, and the
affirm- in the deepest parts of the sea and escape
ing tone is in sharp contrast with the
the pursuit of man. The two of them
pessimism permeating such books as The struggle with each other to the death, but
Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to
One aspect of this universe,
Arms.) without animosity hatred. On the con-
or

from the earlier works, is its

familiar
changeless-
ness. (The round of Nature-which in-
cludes human nature-is not only eternal
but eternally the same. The sun not
only
rises, it rises always, and sets and rises
again without change of rhythm. The re-
lationship of Nature to man proceeds
through basic patterns that never vary.
Therefore, despite the fact that a story by
Hemingway is always full of action, the
action takes place inside a world that is
fundamentally static.)
Moreover, its procésses are purely secu-
lar in character: Hemingway's figures are
often religious but their religion
ripheral rather than central to their lives.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago,
the principal figure, is a primitive Cuban,
at once religious and superstitious. Yet
neither his religion nor his superstitious
beliefs are relevant to his tragic experi-
ence with the great marlin; they do not
create it or in any way control its meaning.
The fisherman himself, knowing what it
is all about, relies on his own resources
and not on God (in whom he devoutly be
lieves, just as Jake Barnes, while calling
himself bad Catholic, is also a devout
a (A sense of brotherhood and love, in a
If
believer). he succeeds in catching the
fish,he "will say ten Our Fathers and ten
Hail Marys.. . and make a pilgrimage to
trary, the old manfeels a deep affection
and admiration for the fish. He admires
its great strength as it
pulls his skiff
out to sea, and becomes conscious of its
nobility as the two grow closer and closer
together, in spirit as well as space, during
their long interlude on the Gulf Stream.
In the final struggle between them, his
hands bleeding, his body racked with fa-
tigue and pain, the old man reflects in his
exhaustion:hat he ho e Seen d
noble & a(m
You are killing me, fish. . . . But you have creaoi S
a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or he ma lin
more beautiful, or a calmer or a more noble &ha aduQAARS
thing than you, brother. Come on and kill ha maLim
is pe- me. I do not care who kills who.
(p. 102) to kill ham
On the homeward journey, with the mar- as do
lin tied to the boat and already under at-
tack from sharks, Santiago establishes his
final whem
relationship with the fish, that great
phenomenon of Nature:
You did not kill the fish only to keep alive
and to sell for food, he thought. You killed
him for pride and because you are a fisher-
man. You loved him when he was alive and
you loved him after. If you love_him, it is
not a sin to kill him. (p. 116)
world in which everyone is killing or be-
ing killed, binds together the creatures of
Nature, establishes between them a unity
1l

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 12

and an emotion which COLLEGE ENGLISH

rctve transcends
In the pattern in which they are the de To be hero a means
to dare more than
man
eternal round, each living
caught. other men, to expose oneselt to
and animal, acts out its thing, dangers, and therefore more ETeater
cording to the drives of destiny ac risk greatly to
the possibilities of defeat and
in the its death.
found
process becomes a part species, and On the eighty-fifth day
of the pro- after
last fish, Santiago rows far catching the
his
harmony of the natural beyond
This
harmony, taking into account universe.
the
customary fishing grounds; as he drops
his lines into
nara tacts of pursuit, violence, and death he sees the other water of unplumbed depth
but reaching a stage of feeling fishermen, looking very
them, is a primary aspect of Hemingway's beyond tween
small, strung out in a line far inland be-
View of the himself and the shore. Because he
their place. world(are
Even the sharks have is out so far, he catches the
They great fish.
Dut largely
the strongest and most scavengers, But because the fish is so
powerful, it
powerful pulls his skiff even farther out-so far
among them, the great Mako shark which from shore that they cannot get back
makes its way out of the
deep part of the in time to prevent the
marlin being chewed
sea, shares the grandeur of the marlin. to pieces by the sharks. 71 shouldn't have
Santiago kills him but feels identified with gone out so far, fish," he said. "Neither
him as well:) for you nor for me. I'm
sorry, fish" (p.
But you enjoyed killing the dentuso, he 21)(The greatness of the experience and
thought. He lives on the live fish as you the inevitability of the los are bound
He is not a
do. together. Nature provides us with bound-
up
scavenger nor just a moving
appetite as some sharks are. He is beautiful less opportunities for the great
and noble and knows no fear of anything.
experience
if we have it in us to respond. The experi-
(PP. 116-117) ence carries with it its heavy
tragic price.
No matter. It is worth it. When Santiago
Nature not only has its own harmony at last returns with the marlin still lashed
and integration but also its degrees of to the skiff but eaten
away to the skeleton,
value. In The Old Man and the Sea this he staggers uphill to his hut groaning
is contained in the idea of depth. The under the weight of the mast. He falls
deeper the sea the more valuable the créa- asleep exhausted and dreams of the Afri-
tures living there and the more intense can lions he had seen in his
younger days
the experience deriving from it. On the at sea. The next morning the other fisher-
day that he catches the great marlin, the men
gaze in awe at the size of the skeleton,
old man goes much farther out than the measure it to see by how much it is record-
other ishermen and casts bait in much breaking, while the reverential feeling of
deeper water. The marlin itself is a deni- the boy, Manolin, for the fisherman is
zen of the profounder depths. Even the strongly reinforced. Everyone has some-
Mako shark lives in the deep water and how been uplifted by the experience. Even
its speed, power, and directness are quali- on the lowest, most ignorant level, it creates
ties associated with depth. There are, in a sensation. The tourists in the last scene
fact, two orders in every species: the great of the story mistake the marlin for a
marlins and the lesser, the great sharks shark but they too are struck by a sense
and the smaller, bad-smelling, purely of the extraordinary.
scavenger sharks who dwell in shallower The world not onlycontains the possi-
water and attack with a sly indirectness in bilities of heroic adventure and emotion
demeaning contrast with the bold approach to which everyone, on whatever level, can
of the Mako. There
are also two kinds of
men-as there have always been in Hem-
respond, but it also has continuity. Santi-
ago is very old and has not much timne
ingway-the greater men and the lesser, left. But he has been training Manolin
heroes and ordinary humans. to pick up where he leaves off. The boy
 13
THE SEA
MANAND
THE OLD of the mar-

max
great jump
with the first sees
his parents
from
the first time, Santiago
removed by lin when, for
has
been of his had kck, size of his prey.
Hemingway
nan's boat becatsse the gigantic
the old d i m i n i s h e s the boy's attention to the rippling
close
bst this
in no way The master- pays very wind c u r r e n t s ,
to he }ike Santiago. the water, to
ragernese and Auting of and birds,
between them suggests of turtles, fish,
relationship the m o v e m e n t s
pupil is part of a tradi- s u n and
stars. One is filled
that the heroic impulse the rising of Nature's vast-
handed down from
one
tional process not simply
with a s e n s e of
to another, that
the world is a e n c h a n t m e n t . This
en-
generation ness, but of her
and afhr- dimension to
continuous skein of possibilitysubdued in
aesthetic
chantment adds a n
whose
an adventure
mation.) This affirming note, Santiago's adventure,
Hemingway's carlier fiction, is sounded moral meaning and
heroism invests it with
comradeship and
and unrestricted
here with unambiguous invocation of
whose with emotionai grandeur.
clarity. identity supply it
is the clearest repre- is no
/Indeed, Santiago Within this universe, where there
sentation of the hero because
he is the learning
Hemingway who limit to the depth of experience, im-
only major character in how to function is of the greatest
wounded or
has not been permanently to have will;
is suggested portance. It is not enough
disillusioned. His heroic side he de- one must also have technique.
If will is
throughout.) Once, in Casablanca, is what
at what enables one to live, technique
feated a huge Negro from Cienfuegos
enables one to live successfully. Santiago
the hand game and was referred to there- but a su-
after as El Campéon. Now in his old age, is not a journeyman fisherman,
craftsman who knows his business
he is hero-worshipped by Manolin who perb it with
wants always to fish with him, or, when he thoroughly and always practises
lines straight
cannot, at least to help him even with his great skill. He keeps his
where others allow them to drift with
most menial chores. At sea Santiago, shar-
the "It is better to be lucky," he
current.
ing the Cuban craze for baseball, thinks
frequently of Joe DiMaggio, the greatest thinks."But I would rather be exact.
Then when luck comes you are ready"
ballplayer of his generation, and wonders (p. 36). To be ready-with all one's pro-
whether DiMaggio, suffering from a bone
spur in his heel, ever endured the pain fessional as well as psychological re-
which the marlin is now subjecting him to. sources-that is the imperative. One rea-
And at night, when he sleeps, he dreams of son that Hemingway's stories are so
lions playing on the beaches of Africa. The crammed with technical details about
constant association withthe king of ball1 fishing, hunting, bull-fighting, boxing,
players and the king of beasts adds to the and war-so much so that they often read
old man's heroic proportions. He is heroic like manuals on these subjects-is his
even in his bad luck. The story opens with belief that professional technique is th
the announcement that he hds gone eighty- quickest and surest way of understanding
four days without taking a fish-ordinary the physical processes of Nature, of get
men are seldom afficted with disaster so ting into the thing itself. Men should stud
outsized. / world in which they are born as th
Heighténing and intensifying these al- most serious of all subjects; they can liv
ready magnified effects is the extraordi in it only as they succeed in handlin
nary beauty of Nature which cozens and themselves with skill. Life is more tha
bemuses us with its sensuous intoxica- an endurance contest. It is also an an
tions. The account of the sea coming to with rules, rituals, and methods tha
life at dawn is one of the most moving once learned, lead to
on mastery.
passages in the story, supplemented later Furthermore, when the_great
tr
at rhapsodic intervals by
the drama of the comes, one must be alone. The pressu
great pursuit. This comes to its visual cli- and the agony cannot be shared
 14
COLLRGE ENGI.ISH
story.
Cantwell's It
sloughed off on others, but must be en- lescent Byron spoiled
dured alone. (Santiago, his hands chafed almost totally absent from Santiago's.
is
world which
and bleeding from the pull of the marlin, Here we have entered a
from the
his face cut, in a state of virtual prostra- has to some degree recovered
so frightening
tion from his struggle, several times gaping wounds
that made it
The world
the boy were with him to ease the placein the early stories.
wishes a
which injured Jake Barnes
so crueliy,
strain, but it is essential that he go un- Henry of
accompanied, that in the end he rely on his pointlessly deprived Lieutenant
love, destroyed Harry Morgan
own resources and endure his trial un
his one
and robbed
aided. At the bottom of this necessity for at the height of his powers,
Robert Jordan of his political idealism
there is the incurable reliance
SOlitariness, its balance. It
on the individual which makes Heming has n o w begun to regain
bleak trap within which
is n o longer the
way the great contemporary inheritor of to struggle, suffer,
and die
man is doomed
the romantic tradition. (The stripping-
struggle between as bravely as he can, but a meaningful,
down of existence to the integrated structure
our
that challenges re-
1ndividual man and the natural world, the
holds forth rich emotional
resources,
of which he rises to live in it daringly
during the course
wards for those who
highest levels of himself, has an early echo and boldly though continuingdirect
to exact

in Keats's line "Then on the shore of

the
them in pro
world I .In
stand alone. modern heavy payment from reach out. There
wide it is Melville and Conrad who give
fiction
.

portion to how far they

this theme its significant shape. The
most
Nature
mysterious, inscrutable, dramatic
themselves
into which their heroes plunge
in search of their own
the scaffolding
supplies Hemingway with the Sea. Like
for The Old Man and
Captain Ahab, like Lord
is pitched into the dangerous ocean for
to fall
only there, and with only himself
back on, can he work out his
with life.
come to final terms
(The concept of the hero whose triumnph
consists of stretching his own powers to
their absolute limits regardless of the
physical results gives The Old Man and
the Sea a special place among its
works. It confronts us with a man who
is not only capable of making the ultimate
effort, but makes it successfully and con-
tinuously This theme of affirmation, that
had begun to be struck in Across the
River and into the Trees, is presented here
much more convincingly. Colonel Cant-
well of the immediately preceding novel
is forever talking about his heroism; San-
tiago acts his out. Cantwell reminisces on
past triumphs; the old fisherman demon-
strates them before our eyes. The strain
of boastful exhibitionism that causes some
is no less tragedy than
before, but this
has lost its bleakness and accidentality,
and become purposive. It is
this sense of
first appear
self-realization purposiveness that makes its
philosophy, and sets
ance in Hemingway's
off The Old Man and the Sea from his
other fiction.
Jim, Santiago the first World War the tradi
(After Western
tional hero disappeared from
and literature, to be replaced in one form
or
destiny another by Kafka's Mr. K. Hemingway's
were
protagonists, from Nick Adams on,
hemmed in like Mr. K. by a bewildering
vise.
cosmos which held them in a tight
The huge complicated mushrooming of
author's politics, society, and the factory age began
to smother freedom of action on the
indi-
vidual's part. In his own life Hemingway
tended to avoid the industrialized coun-
tries including his own, and was drawn
from the start to the primitive places
of Spain, Africa, and Cuba. For there,
the ancient struggle and harmony between
man and Nature still existed, and
the
heroic attractive to Hem-
possibilities so
ingway's temperament had freer play. At
last, in the drama of Santiago, a drama
entirely outside the framework of modern
society and its institutions, he was ablefull
to

readers to regard Hemingway as an ado bring these possibilities to their first

 5

THE O1LD MA NAND

THE S EA total
possible a
makes
value because it the self.
however
fruition, and re-discover. in to the
dermands upon
lost in the response main figures
specialized a context, the hero first of the
Santiago is the an
American,
twentieth century. who is not
in Hemingway
(Thus 7he Old Man and the Sea is the free of the entangle-
and who is altogether toward the
cmination of Hemingway's long search life. It is
ments of modern
for disengagrment from the social world
the natural) This creation such a figure that Hemingway
of
ese entry into
focus than ever te fore has been noving, however obscue
erges in clearer to get in-
as one of the major themes in his career from the beginning. His ability
character without the
both as writer and man. Jake and Bill are side this type of
happy only in the remote countryside out- fatal self-consciousness that mars so much
side Burguete, away from the machinery literary "primitivism" is a measire
how far he has succeeded, in imagination
of postwar Europe. 1t is when Lieutenant
Henry signs his separate peace, deserts at least, in freeing himself from the tamil
from the Italian army, and retires with his iar restraints of convention.
love to the high Swiss mountains far re- In this movement from the confine-
moved from the man-made butchery of ments of society to the challenges of Na-
the war that he enjoys his brief moment
of unclouded bliss. The defeated writer ture, Hemingway is most closely linked to
in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," as he Conrad. Conrad thrust his Europeans into
the pressures of the Malayan archipelago
lies dying, laments his inability to free
himself from the complicated temptations
and darkest Africa because he was con-
vinced that only when removed from the
of
money, fashion, the life of sophisti- comforts and protective mechanisms of
cated dilettantism, and thinks of his lost civilization could they be put to the test.
talent as resting unspoiled on the remote In his one London novel, The Secret
virginal snows cresting the summit of
an African mountain (height on land is
Agent, Conrad demonstrated that suffer-
ing and tragedy were as possible in Brix-
plainly the moral equivalent in Heming- ton and Camberwell as off the Java coast;
way to depth in the sea). Robert Jordan
heroism, however, was not, and The
must first disengage himself from the Secret Agent stands as his one major
political machinery of Spain before the work that remained hero-less. This em-
act of sacrificing his life for his comrades of Nature has nothing of Rousseau
can acquire its note of pure bracing
spiritual ex in it; it is not a revulsion against the
altation.
The movement to get out of society and corruption and iniquity of urban life. It
is, instead, a flight from safety and the
its artifices is not motivated by the desire
atrophying of the spirit produced by
to escape but by the desire for liberation.
safety. It is for the sake of the liberation
Hemingway seeks to immerse himself of the human spirit rather than the purifi
totally in Nature not to "evade his re- cation of social institutions that Conrad
sponsibilities" but to free his moral
and and Hemingway play out their lonely
emotional self. Since life in society is dramas in the bosom of Nature.
necessarily stunting and artificial, coward- Because The Old Man and the Sea re-
ice consists not of
breaking out of it cords this drama in its most successful
but of continuing in it. To be true to
form, it gives off in atmosphere and tone
oneself makes a return to the lost world
of Nature
a buoyant sense of release that is new
categorically imperative. And in Hemingway. The story, then, may wel
that lost world, as The Old Man and the be less a capstone of Hemingway's ex-
Sea reveals, has its own
responsibilities, traordinary career to date than a fresh
disciplines, moralities, and all-embracing emotional point of departure for the work
meaning quite the equivalent of anything to come.
present in society and of much greater