A Report On The Old Man And The Sea By Ernest Hemingway

Author bio

Ernest Miller Hemingway, born in 1899, was a Nobel prize-winner American writer started his career as a journalist in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of 17. A year after he volunteered to fill in as a Red Cross ambulance driver in WWI and was sent to the Italian Army, while he was serving at the front he was injured by shrapnel. He fictionalized his involvement in Italy in what some think his greatest novel, “A Farewell to Arms” (1929).

Hemingway is famed for his choice of words, using many captions and making trustworthy scholarly figures. A few books are today exemplary in the American literature. In 1954 he survived two plane crashes which injured his kidney and liver, because of the kidney issues he got a high blood pressure. The medicine he received gave him severe depression leading to the end of his literary career. He started drinking and in 1960 for the first time, he was at the Mayo Clinic for poisoning. In total, he was 39 times at the clinic and received a shock treatment every visit. One morning just a few days before his 62nd birthday he reached the limit of his suffering and on the 2nd of July in 1961, he took his life by shooting himself with a shotgun.

A short summary of the book

The old fisherman Santiago has not had any luck, he had an 84-day streak catching not a single fish. His apprentice, Manolin, was forbidden by his parents to sail with Santiago and was told to fish with the successful fishermen. The boy Manolin visits the old man shack each night carrying his fishing gear, preparing food and talking about American baseball.

On the 85th day of his unlucky streak, he tells the boy that he will sail far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba. He was confident that his unlucky streak was about to end. On his journey his bait was taken by a big fish, he was sure it was a marlin. He couldn’t pull the great marlin, instead, the fish begins to pull the boat through two days and nights while the old man was holding onto the cord. The old man was wounded by the struggle and was in pain, although he felt a deep empathy and admiration for the great marlin and due to the fish’s dignity, he believes no one deserves to eat the marlin.

On the third day, the fish began to circle his small boat, and Santiago used his remaining strength to pull the fish and stab it with a harpoon. Then he straps the marlin to the side of his boat thinking about the high price the fish will bring him and how many people he will feed.

On his way back to the shore, there were sharks attracted to the marlin’s blood and the old man (Santiago) manages to kill a shark with his harpoon but loses it afterward. By nightfall sharks kept coming and eating the marlin, on his arrival into the shore there was only the skeleton of the great marlin was left. The next day a group of amazed fishermen gathers around his boat, where the skeleton of the great marlin was still attached and the tourists nearby mistake it for a shark. In the end, the boy Manolin finally could sail with the old man Santiago.

How the author’s life and society have influenced the story?

Ernest Hemingway’s life definitely influenced the writing of “The old man and the sea”, the similarities between Santiago and Hemingway are noticeable. Both of them were struggling, Hemingway had not written a winning or successful novel in 10 years, and Santiago had not caught a fish in 84 days. They each had to prove themselves once more. Santiago’s marlin being torn apart by sharks is symbolic of critics tearing apart “The old man and the sea”, it maybe what Hemingway expected. Since his failing marriages and rejection made him portray women in a negative way. There's not any clear connection between the story and the society at that time of being.