Friends Essay, Research Paper

Another Ernest Hemingway

Many of Ernest Hemingway’s books have

had different meaning and all could be interpreted in different

way, but there has never been so much written about his

other stories. Well the Old Man and the Sea had more

written about it than any of his other novels and there have

never been so many different types of interpretations about

his other novels. The Old Man and the Sea is a book in

which can be interpreted in many different ways. Here you

will read what many critics have composed about the story

of a great writer, Ernest Hemingway. Many of the critics

have the same outlook on the works of Hemingway.

Hemingway’s work The Old man and the Sea can be looked

at in many different perspectives. All the critics believed that

his styling of writing was very defined. In 1944 Ernest

Hemingway went to Havana, Cuba and it was there he

wrote a letter to Maxwell Perkins which states he has a idea

on a new novel called The Old Man and the Sea ( Nelson

and Jones 139). Hemingway first got his idea for The Old

Man and the Sea from the stories that he had heard in the

small fish cities in Cuba by a man named Carlos Gutierrez.

He had known of this man for about twenty years and the

stories of the fighting marlins. It was then that he imagined

that man under the two circumstances and came up with the

idea. After about twenty years of pondering on the story , he

decided that he would start on the novel of The Old Man

and the Sea. The story The Old Man and the Sea is about a

old man named Santiago who has to over come the great

forces of nature. Things seem to always go wrong for him

because originally he started out going to fish for some

dinner, then he caught the biggest marlin ever and it pulled

him out in the bay of Cuba even more then he was. After he

was pulled out, he hurt his hands and couldn’t risk going to

sleep because of the risk of sharks. When the sharks finally

attacked he lost the marlin which had become a great part of

him because he knew that no one would believe him when

he told them the size of the marlin. This has to be one of the

most memorable fights in a novel that I have ever seen, but I

think that the way he put the novel together was just as good

as that of the fight. When he put them together it was then

that he relized that what he was actually writing about was a

struggle of man vs. nature. He liked the idea of man vs.

nature and decided to use it in the struggle scene with the

marlin. Magill wrote,” the book can be seen as a fable of the

unconquerable spirit of man, a creature capable of snatching

spiritual victories from the circumstances of disaster and

material defeat” (Magill 4325). Also it is said,” the conflict is

of the strength of a ordinary man and the power of

nature”(Magill 4325). I feel that Santiago plays a large role

in the novel by being able not to give in and prove to the

element of nature that he would over come them in the long

run. Magill wrote,” The Old Man and the Sea is a direct

descendant of Moby Dick”(Magill 4326). He feels that the

struggle between Santiago and the marlin is very much like

that of the whale and the captain in Moby Dick. The

similarities between The Old Man and the Sea and Moby

Dick are extremely noticeable after reading both of the

stories back to back, but there are differences in the story

line. The main difference is that Santiago never comes out

with anything unlike the captain in Moby Dick. Santiago was

left with just a broken boat, a bad fishing pole, and the

misery of defeat. The story could also be interpreted as

being religious because of the struggle that Santiago was put

though. Also it is felt by some people to be religious because

of the way he only cut his palms( from the rope), his feet( on

the front of the boat) and his head(when the bow hit him in

the head). It is often portrayed as that of Jesus on the cross.

I don’t know if I really agree with this interpretation of it

being religious. The reason I don’t agree with this is because

if everytime someone got cut on the hands and feet in a

movie or book then I guess that they too resemble that of

Jesus on the cross. This story has many different

interpretations to it, but would the interpretations be if the

story contained everyone from the village in it and sowed

how the were raised, born, educated, and bore children.

This story could have been well over a thousand pages if the

above were included (Plimpton 125). The big question that I

ask is though, if all the above were included in the novel,

how different do you think that the interpretation would be?

I feel that the interpretations would be so very different

because the whole story be circled around that of the battle

between Santiago and the marlin. Also, I believe that the

religious interpretations would be not as strong because of

dealing more with the life of the city people and that of

Santiago. Hemingway is a writer who creates things out of

his head. If he wasn’t a genius then how come did he win a

Pulitzer Pride for the story The Old Man and the Sea

Hemingway states,” I knew two or three things about the

situation, but I didn’t know the story” ” I didn’t even know if

that big fish was going to bite for the old man when it started

smelling around the bait. I had to write on inventing out of

knowledge. You reject everything that is not or can’t be

completely true.”(Bruccoli 179) I think that Hemingway is a

genius for writing this novel because in my point of view it

shows the battle between human and nature and that really

caught my attention rereading this novel for the third time. I

also caught the moral of the story in my point of view, and

that is not everything good that you have is always going to

be there. To me that means alot because that moral also

refers alot about your family as well as friends. Hemingway

is looked upon as one of the greatest writers to ever set foot

on this earth in the twentieth century. He is a writer who is

know for leaving very little left unsaid or leave you

wondering, for example, what’s going to happen, is he gonna

die or not. As you could see in this novel he got to the point

in a direct manner without leaving anything unsaid and he

definitely didn’t leave you thinking about if Santiago was

going to live or not. Many people do not like the writings of

Ernest Hemingway because they feel most everything that he

writes about is unhappy or make believe. Fredrick Busch

said at one point in time ,” He didn’t want to read that of

which was unhappy or make believe” referring to

Hemingway’s work (Bryfonski 130). Many have said to

believe that The Old Man and the Sea was written about the

life of Ernest Hemingway, which in reality it was written

about a Cuban by the name of Carlos Gutierrez. However

some of the parts in this story do relate to things Hemingway

has experienced. In conclusion, The Old Man and the Sea

can be interpreted in many different forms, but I think it isn’t

how you interpret it. Don’t get me wrong some people like

to read to see how many ways you can interpret it but , you

should read a novel to learn from others mistakes and also

for the pleasure of expanding you knowledge American and

English literature. I could name many different books in

which I have read that have actually left a impact on my life

in some sort or another. Bibliographies Bruccoli, Matthew J.

Conversations with Ernest Hemingway. Mississippi: UP

Mississippi, 1986 Bryfonski, Dedria. Contemporary

Authors. Michigan: Bok Towers,1984 Magill,Frank M.

Masterplots. 8 vols., New Jersey: Salem Press,1976

Nelson, Gerald B., and Glory Jones. Hemingway: Life and

Works. New York: Facts on File Publications,1984

Wagner, Linda W. Ernest Hemingway, Five Decades of

Criticism . Michigan: Michigan State UP, 1974 Wagner,

Linda W. Ernest Hemingway, Six Decades of Criticism.

Michigan: Michigan State UP, 1982