What You’ll Love about… The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway gets a bad rap as a macho dirtbag, but his writing can be remarkably sensitive and humane, and even when it’s recounting brutality, it conveys a sense of waste and shame about that brutality that can be redemptive. The Old Man and the Sea seems to suggest that people would be better off minding their own business and leaving the innocent critters of the Earth alone.
The Old Man and the Sea focuses on the efforts of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago to break his slump of 84 days without catching a fish. He ends up hooking a huge marlin, but it’s not clear that he is capable of pulling it in by himself, and he experiences various challenges and setbacks.
As he struggles to pull the marlin in, the text shows that Santiago’s consciousness is split between honoring the strength and majesty of the marlin and justifying his attempts to destroy it. He calls it “brother,” but he also admits to taking pleasure in killing it.
Santiago struggles against himself as much as he struggles against the marlin. His hand cramps up at one point, and he describes it as an embarrassing treachery. He has to remind himself to eat. He is accidentally cut beneath his eye after the marlin pulls unexpectedly. His hand is cut by a line burn during his struggle with the marlin.
