characters of The old man and The sea
The old man and The sea
Name: Jadeja Yoginiba Jagdishsinh
T.Y. B.A. Sem.5
Paper Name : Characters of The old man and The sea
Class Assignment
# Santiago:
characters of The old man and The sea
The old man of the novella’s title, Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who has had an extended run of bad luck. Despite his expertise, he has been unable to catch a fish for eighty-four days. He is humble, yet exhibits a justified pride in his abilities. His knowledge of the sea and its creatures, and of his craft, is unparalleled and helps him preserve a sense of hope regardless of circumstance. Throughout his life, Santiago has been presented with contests to test his strength and endurance. The marlin with which he struggles for three days represents his greatest challenge. Paradoxically, although Santiago ultimately loses the fish, the marlin is also his greatest victory.
# The Marlin :
Santiago hooks the marlin, which we learn at the end of the novella measures eighteen feet, on the first afternoon of his fishing expedition. Because of the marlin’s great size, Santiago is unable to pull the fish in, and the two become engaged in a kind of tug-of-war that often seems more like an alliance than a struggle. The fishing line serves as a symbol of the fraternal connection Santiago feels with the fish. When the captured marlin is later destroyed by sharks, Santiago feels destroyed as well. Like Santiago, the marlin is implicitly compared to Christ.
# Joe DiMaggio
Although DiMaggio never appears in the novel, he plays a significant role nonetheless. Santiago worships him as a model of strength and commitment, and his thoughts turn toward DiMaggio whenever he needs to reassure himself of his own strength. Despite a painful bone spur that might have crippled another player, DiMaggio went on to secure a triumphant career. He was a center fielder for the New York Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and is often considered the best all-around player ever at that position.
# Perico :
Perico, the reader assumes, owns the bodega in Santiago’s village. He never appears in the novel, but he serves an important role in the fisherman’s life by providing him with newspapers that report the baseball scores. This act establishes him as a kind man who helps the aging Santiago.
# Martin:
Like Perico, Martin, a café owner in Santiago’s village, does not appear in the story. The reader learns of him through Manolin, who often goes to Martin for Santiago’s supper. As the old man says, Martin is a man of frequent kindness who deserves to be repaid.
# Manolin :
A boy presumably in his adolescence, Manolin is Santiago’s apprentice and devoted attendant. The old man first took him out on a boat when he was merely five years old. Due to Santiago’s recent bad luck, Manolin’s parents have forced the boy to go out on a different fishing boat. Manolin, however, still cares deeply for the old man, to whom he continues to look as a mentor. His love for Santiago is unmistakable as the two discuss baseball and as the young boy recruits help from villagers to improve the old man’s impoverished conditions.
Home Assignment
Summary on The old man and The sea by Ernest Hemingway
About the author :
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature.
Born : July 21, 1899 Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.
Died : July 2, 1961 (aged 61) Ketchum, Idaho, U.S.
Notable awards :
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953)
: Nobel Prize in Literature (1954)
Spouses :
Hadley Richardson
Pauline Pfeiffer
Martha Gellhorn
Mary Welsh
Summary
Mary Welsh
Summary:
On the coast of Cuba near Havana, an old widowed fisherman named Santiago has been unable to catch a fish for 84 days. His apprentice, Manolin, has been forced by his parents to seek another "luckier" employer, although Manolin continues to help Santiago launch and retrieve his boat from the ocean each day. Manolin cares for the aging Santiago, bringing him food and clothing, and in return Santiago tells Manolin stories about baseball legends and his younger days fishing in a boat off of Africa. Every night, Santiago dreams of lions on the beaches of Africa. Early each morning, Santiago walks up the road to Manolin's family's home to wake him up for work.
On the morning of the 85th day, Manolin helps Santiago launch his boat into the sea. Santiago rows over the deep well where he has been trying to catch fish for the past week and decides to try his luck farther out. Finally, in the early afternoon, he catches a ten-pound tuna, which he decides will be his meal for the day. Not long afterward, Santiago feels a hard pull on his line and realizes that a huge marlin has caught his hook.
Because the marlin is so big, however, Santiago cannot pull it in. The marlin pulls Santiago's skiff farther and farther from land. As the sun goes down, Santiago begins to feel a kind of companionship with the marlin. He pities the fish, even loves it, but is still determined to kill it. He decides to cut all his other lines so that nothing will interfere with his great catch.
As the sun comes up on Santiago's second day at sea, the marlin suddenly surges, pulling the line and cutting Santiago's hand. As he nurses his hand, the marlin jumps up out of the water, and Santiago can see the fish is bigger than any marlin he has ever seen, much less caught on his own. He has to hold onto the line with all his might so that the marlin does not break free from the boat. He prays that he will be able to kill the marlin, and wonders what his hero Joe DiMaggio would do if he were in Santiago's situation.
As it grows dark on Santiago's second day at sea, he lets out a small line and catches a dolphinfish to eat. He rests for a few hours, but is woken by the marlin jumping frantically. Santiago continues holding the line, although it has been cutting into his hand for some time. The marlin tires and begins circling the boat as Santiago grows weaker from lack of sleep and exhaustion. Finally, Santiago uses all his strength to harpoon and kill the marlin.
Santiago ties the marlin to the side of his boat and begins sailing back toward Cuba. During the homeward journey, however—his third day at sea—sharks attack the boat, tearing the flesh from the marlin. Santiago fights desperately, killing or driving off most of the sharks, but eventually the sharks eat all the flesh off the marlin. When Santiago pulls into the harbor, everyone is sleeping, and Santiago struggles to carry his mast back to his shack, leaving the marlin's skeleton still tied to his boat in the harbor.
The next day, Manolin finds Santiago asleep in his shack. Manolin is overjoyed to see him but cries when he sees the cuts in Santiago's hands. He brings Santiago coffee, passing the crowd of fisherman who are marveling at the marlin's giant skeleton. When Santiago wakes up, Manolin tells him he doesn't care what his parents say—he's going to start fishing with Santiago again. Meanwhile, as a party of tourists watches the marlin's skeleton and mistakes it for a shark, Santiago drifts back to sleep under Manolin's watchful gaze and dreams of lions.
(Eassy)
Analysis and themes of The old man the sea
Analysis:
The novella’s protagonist, Santiago, faces the most strenuous days of a long life spent coaxing a living from the sea. These days on the sea test his stamina and prove that he can “suffer like a man” against pain, exhaustion, failure, and age. The conflict plays out against the marlin Santiago relentlessly hunts and the sharks that relentlessly hunt the marlin, but even more, Santiago faces the conflict in his ruined body and vacillating thoughts. Santiago’s story examines ideas about why life involves suffering and failure, and of how to face and endure loss. The story’s action begins when Santiago’s luck seems to have left him. He is an experienced, competent fisherman, yet for 84 days, he has not brought in marlin to sell at market. Some fishermen mock his hopes, but Manolin, whom Santiago began teaching when the boy was five years old, believes that Santiago’s luck will turn. Santiago, whose eyes are “cheerful and undefeated,” does not let failure discourage him. The plot’s inciting incident may be Santiago’s willingness to head out alone on day 85, but the moment late in the day when a marlin takes the bait and begins to tow Santiago’s boat farther out is the event that launches the rising action.
The climax comes when Santiago kills the marlin, piercing its heart and fulfilling his destiny as one born to fish. Even in its death throes, the marlin’s strength and vitality inspire Santiago’s respect and love. The falling action follows quickly as Santiago begins the hard work of securing the fish and returning to the coast. The marlin’s suffering is over, but Santiago’s continues. As he sails in his weakened condition, he suffers with each shark attack that ravages the beautiful fish. With his wounded hands, he kills the “hateful” sharks. When his meager weapons are expended, he declares, “I’ll fight them until I die.” Thinking of the pain of his hero, “the great DiMaggio,” inspires Santiago to endure. He also draws strength from his relationship with the marlin. They had been adversaries, but now, as Santiago fights the sharks, they become allies against the unworthy scavengers.
Santiago proves his heroism and nobility by continuing to fight in the face of almost certain defeat. He cannot prevent the sharks from mauling the marlin, but he utilizes every makeshift weapon at his disposal and all his strength, fighting on until fighting becomes impossible. He hasn’t broken his unlucky streak, but his return home posits the idea that even in defeat, there can be victory. The fisherman gape at the carcass, amazed. Manolin, when out of his mentor’s sight, weeps because he understands the cost of the effort. The “coppery” blood that Santiago coughed up and spat into the sea may signal his coming death, but the novella ends with him dreaming of his beloved young lions at play, suggesting that there is life in him yet.
What this ambiguous resolution means depends in part on how the story is read. Parables are stories that suggest truths about life’s hard questions and feature archetypes rather than realistic characters. As an archetype, Santiago is not simply an old man but the old man whose life teaches a lesson. Read as a parable, Santiago’s story suggests answers to such questions as why life involves suffering and failure and how people face and endure loss. Santiago persists through pain and hunger, heat and thirst, and ultimate failure. Yet his suffering takes on a redemptive power, highlighted by his cry as the sharks move in. The narrator calls this cry the sound of a man “feeling the nail go through his hand and into the wood” in a clear allusion to Christ’s redemptive suffering. The resolution in this reading is captured in Santiago’s advice to himself as he struggles to bring the remains of the marlin to shore: “Keep awake and steer. You may have much luck yet.” Santiago finds purpose and contentment in the struggle itself, regardless of results.
Themes:
Pride and determination :Here is the theme of pride and determination. In these themes Santiago's pride becomes his tragic flaw and after the shark destroys the marlin then he apologizes to his brother. However pride motivates his to overcome the 84 days of misfortune. The theme of pride and determination are the source of greatness. Perseverance :The theme of perseverance in the old man and sea since 1952 bringing man and fish together. The old man's battle of strength, but battle of wills. Endurance becomes a way we connect the old age with incredible endurance.
Suffering: In The Old Man and the Sea this theme is mentioned a lots. Because when he catching a big fish that time he suffered a lot and other people tells him unlucky by their arguments he suffering from that. He suffered also from physical pain.But for Santiago suffering is necessary because step in his battle with the fish. When he battles with fish in the sea at that time he stuggles a lot but he fails in his battle that time he suffered a lot. In this the old man is feels pain in the end. We can say him that he is a good fisherman.
Strength and the skill: The theme of Strength and skill are interesting themes in the old man and the sea. Because in this novel physical strength is as important as skill and experience. The old man may not be as strong as in his youth, he is old here, but he makes up for it and we see that he has knowledge of sea and his fishing Prowess. Skill and strength are required for fishing. In the old has these both themes and he also proved it in the novel.
Memory and the past: This theme is a dominant theme in this novel because we know that memory is overlaid with correct action. In the past something happened badly it is used to comment on the present. Here we talked about the memory of Santiago. His memory of the lions is a constant motif. This is significant point that they are from his past.
Defeat: In end this theme is mentioned. In the novel this is persistent question by the end the story. We can say that old man is defeated with his situation. In the end this question is raised in our mind that was the Old man defeated? The old man identifies something is broken in his chest. But defeat implies the breaking of one's spirit. It is spiritual act.
Isolation :The theme of isolation is more we can see in life of Santiago. He lives alone and he feels loneliness very much. He lives isolated from most people. In the novel we see during his time on the sea. The isolation theme defines that that he was in his life. It is emphasizes the unique nature of his character. In the novel old man suffers from loneliness. But it is necessary to his battle with the fish on the Sea.
Man and the natural world: In this novel old man is unique and better in his relationship to and understanding for the natural world. He sees birds as friends and the shark as personal enemies. Santiago examines the relationship between turtles and jellyfish between his fish and birds. We see in the lions function, in this discusses about the national order of things.
Hunger :The theme of hunger is the hunger of fish. In the novel the old man is described as almost super human in eating pattern. His eating is very little and not at all. He does not refer to hunger as pain but he talks about hunger of fish not his own.
