American journalist, short story writer and novelist Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) has written extensively. His genres include journalistic writings, short stories, drama and many novels. His major novels include “The Sun Also Rises”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, A Farewell to Arms”. Today, we are going to present a review for our audience on one of his most famous novel titled “The Old Man and The Sea”.
This novel’s protagonist is an old fisherman called Santiago whose sail is patched and gives the impression of permanent defeat. His whole body is wrinkled and leaves an impression of oldness and tiredness. But his eyes are full of brightness, cheerfulness and undefeated. His shoulders are old but still powerful.
Once called ‘El Campeon’ (The Champion) in his youth, now Santiago is considered a ‘Sulao’ (The worst form of being unlucky). Santiago goes eighty-four days without catching a fish. But he is never disappointed or hopeless. He believes eighty fifth day will surely bring luck because in the past it has happened once. Then this story starts from eighty fifth day of Santiago at sea. It definitely brings luck for Santiago. He goes too far in the sea. He catches a big fish even bigger than his own skiff. He has never caught such a big fish. With his limited resources at hand, it becomes very difficult for him to keep the catch.
Then it starts. One of the truly greatest stories of twentieth century. The old man spends four days alone at the sea with scarce resources and manpower except himself. During his struggle, the old man faces many physical as well as psychological issues. He is alone at the sea and that is difficult for him. His hands are injured by the fishing line. One hand becomes cramped. But even then he does not lose his will and continue his mission. I will not mention the full story here. It might contain some spoilers.
Like George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm”, this is also a symbolical novel in which the author has tried to express in his best form the power of human strength and will. The old man named Santiago represents human will, hope, confidence and strength. The sea represents a deluge of problems faced by every man in their life time. The fish is achievement of any man after a long span of hardships and struggle. The sharks attacking on Santiago’s catch are those hurdles you face while bringing home your achievement.
Its thesis statement is “A man can be destroyed but cannot be defeated”. Some feminist friends and gender activist might take it as offensive and may raise the question why only “man” is mentioned. So the man does not necessarily refer to gender of man here but it refers to whole human being.
Though it is a shorter novel (Less than one hundred pages), but it always keeps reader captivating and every one will not leave the book after he has started it. It does not allow your attention to wander here and there at all. When Santiago is waiting for the fish to appear, he keeps talking to himself which is a wonderful monologue. Or sometimes he thinks about his past and recently caught fish.
“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
“It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had always considered it so and respected it”.
“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable”.
“I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.”
No comments:
Post a Comment