The Old Man and the Sea 10

The Old Man and the Sea

This is a story tell us how persevere a person can be. In the story, there are only a few characters through the story, the old fish man, the boy, the sea, and the marlin. If we read the story without any critical thinking, it’s just a common story about a fish man’s daily. However, every word, character in the story is used delicately by Hemingway.

The old man in the book isn’t the typical hero. He isn’t a good-looking person or has a muscular shape. He is thin, old, and even gaunt, but he is still very tough. I think Hemingway wants to shape a hero who is just a common person, but because of his resolution he can done such a great thing. Everything related with him is old except his sea color eyes that means he’s a destined fish man and he knows well he is born to fishing, but he doesn’t deem the sea as a hunting ground and he is the hunter. He calls the sea “la mar” a female. He admires the sea and loves everything that coexists with the sea. The war birds, fishes, even the stars are his friends. He talks with them, even though they never reply him.

The old man is a fish-butcher. He kills fishes, yet he isn’t a cruel kill-robot. From how he treats the marlin, we can tell he is a tender person. He doesn’t use traps and snares and he calls the marlin his brother. Though the old man has to terminate the big fish’s life, he is in the fish’s shoes when his brother is suffering from the sharks’ attacks. He tries to protect his brother body desperately from sharks. At first, he uses harpoon to hits sharks, then knife, club, tiller. He fights for his brother until the last minute. He feels sorry for the marlin that he can’t keep his body intact. If he didn’t go too far, the marlin hasn’t to be tortured. He regrets.

The loneliness, from what the old man do, talk we deems him a tough person, but from some details we can know he is afraid of loneliness. He hangs two pictures, two relics of his late wife, on the wall insteading of his...