Hemingway'S The Old Man and The Sea: An Existential Approach

Animesh Dhara
[email protected]
Instructor: Sireesha Telegu
EN454: American Literature and Thought
May 6, 2022
HEMINGWAY’S THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA : AN EXISTENTIAL APPROACH
Santiago, the hero of The Old Man and The Sea, is the best link in the evolutionary process.
Hemingway's hero passes and gleans through trial and error and cultivates the art of living in a
world by engaging in war and being confronted with violence, bloodshed and struggle for
existence. Santiago enjoys that "solid inward comfort of mind", which springs spontaneously
from fulfilling his appointed action with full awareness and professional skill and renouncing the
fruits of action. He stands head and shoulders above to accomplish his professional task with the
utmost attention and extraordinary professional excellence. Santiago is a true embodiment of ripe
wisdom, selfless love and selfless action.
Santiago's quest for purposefulness and meaning in his avowed task is more arduous. Santiago is
a "strange" old man who has "fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream". He is "thin and gaunt"
with "deep wrinkles" on the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the "benevolent skin
cancer" that the Sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea are marked on his cheeks. The
flaws run well down the sides of his face, and his hands have "deep-creased scars from handling
heavy fish on the cords", but these scars are not fresh. They are "as old as erosions in a fishless
desert". He is a fighter whose best days are behind him, and worse still, he is wholly down on his
luck. He has caught no fish for eight-four days and has lost his apprentice to a luckier boat.
Santiago is not only old, but he is alone at sea. He has got his only friend, Manolin, but Manolin
is restrained from going out to the sea with him not because he doubts the old man's ability as a
fisherman but because his parents do not let him go with Santiago. But the boy loves Santiago
and has faith in him. Santiago has taught him to fish, and Manolin knows that Santiago is "the
best fisherman". Manolin feels sad about Santiago's lousy luck. In contrast, Santiago commands
a natural love and respect from the boy; the present master cannot evoke such a feeling in
Manolin. The more human relationship between them is that of father and son, born of
companionship and sympathetic understanding of each other. The boy knows from the record
that once Santiago had gone without fish for eighty-seven days, he did not give up his attempts
and caught big ones in weeks.
Santiago is methodical, patient, alert, and unshakeably determined like a fine bull-fighter. In
Santiago, the will is indomitable. He has delicate but definite notions of personal value, honour
and excellence, which set him apart from others. His mythology of perfection drives him far out
into the sea in search of the unique and single experience that would lead him to the vindication
of his ability. He does not choose the security of the other fishers, which subjects them to the
contingencies of the flux in natural process. Those processes are without purpose. Santiago has a
greater degree of awareness of the Self, so by willingly and consciously choosing, he avoids the
folly of such surrender and moulds his reality. But it is not enough to have the will to experience;
one must also have the technique. If a will is what enables one to live, the method allows one to
live successfully.
Santiago is a superb craftsman who knows his business thoroughly and practices it with great
skill. He keeps his line straight while "others let them drift with the current". Like his creator and
other heroes of Hemingway, Santiago is endowed with professional expertise. Santiago is
instinctively made to carry on a desperate struggle against the sea. He is loath to give way and
acknowledge defeat. At first, he fights to catch the fish and, afterwards, to kill the sharks. He is
nothing if not a fighter. He is a man of manly spirit, and fighting is his destiny. In his ordeal,
Santiago has been compared to Christ. When he utters the cry, "Ay", for which there is no
translation in words, and it is similar to what a man might say when a nail goes through the
human hand into the wood, the allusion is clear. Again, when Santiago goes up the shake with
his mast on his shoulder, it bears a close resemblance to Christ going up the hill of Calvary. By
comparing an unsophisticated and straightforward fisher with a tremendous mythological figure,
Christ, Hemingway has demonstrated that it is possible to attain greatness even though one may
be a nullity on the social scale.

Santiago as a hero is superb. In creating such a character, Hemingway has declared his belief in
human dignity and brave fight against odds in life; and the key to his triumph is "….man is not
made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
Citations used:
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. Arrow Books, 1994.
The Influence of Ernest Hemingway - Introduction." Twentieth-Century Literary
Criticism. Ed.
Thomas J. Schoenberg Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 162. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com.
16 Sep, 2011 .
21HEMA27, Animesh Dhara

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Animesh Dhara

Instructor: Sireesha Telegu

EN454: American Literature and Thought

HEMINGWAY’S THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA : AN EXISTENTIAL APPROACH

wisdom, selfless love and selfless action.

and caught big ones in weeks.

other heroes of Hemingway, Santiago is endowed with professional expertise. Santiago is

comparing an unsophisticated and straightforward fisher with a tremendous mythological figure,

be a nullity on the social scale.

made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

The Influence of Ernest Hemingway - Introduction." Twentieth-Century Literary

21HEMA27, Animesh Dhara

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