Ernest Hemingway, "The Old Man and the Sea" - analysis. Ernest Hemingway, "the old man and the sea" - analysis
The story "The Old Man and the Sea" is one of the last completed works of Ernest Hemingway. Literary critics define the genre of this work as a story-parable. The story is closely connected with all the previous works of the writer and is the pinnacle of his reflections on the meaning of life. The story can be told in a few sentences.
Santiago: sant - saint, iago - ego. Santiago is a holy man. He symbolizes holiness, his actions, besides, he is old and his old age and death are approaching. The sea is a symbol of life, life itself. The old man also symbolizes strength. Despite the fact that he is old, he is a strong man, both in spirit and body. In his youth, he was strong and rarely got sick, which means he did not feel weak or dependent on someone. No wonder the old man dreamed of lions. First, the lion is a symbol of happiness. This is a harmonious strong animal. Secondly, the lion is a symbol of strength. The old man symbolizes human experience and at the same time its limitations. Next to the old fisherman, the author depicts a little boy who is learning and learning from the old man. Old people are like children, only the first ones are much more experienced. The loneliness of a person is revealed by the author in the symbolic paintings of a shuttle against the backdrop of a boundless ocean. The ocean symbolizes both eternity and an irresistible natural force. Hemingway himself, when asked about symbols, answered: “Obviously, there are symbols, since critics only do what they find. I'm sorry, but I hate talking about them and don't like being asked about them. It's hard enough to write books and stories without any explanation. Besides, it means taking bread from the experts... Read what I write and look for nothing but your own pleasure. And if you need anything else - find it, it will be your contribution to what you read.
Sail - correlates with the symbolism of air, wind. It is an attribute of Fortune, which personifies her impermanence.
Sea - the ancient Greeks saw in the sea the embodiment of the maternal principle. At the same time, it is an image of the element that brings natural disaster and death. Sailing on the sea is often seen as a state between life and death. Bone - there is an episode in the Bible where bones scattered across the field are reborn into flesh at the command of the Lord. The bone thus becomes a symbol of life and faith in the future resurrection.
The ending of the story also becomes symbolic. The old man sleeps and dreams of lions. And next to him, watching his sleep, sits a boy. Youth is next to him both in the form of a boy and in the form of lions, which often come into the dreams of an old man from his youthful years and make him remember his youth, wandering around Africa. In these dreams, the old man becomes young again.
In its style and figurative style, the story "The Old Man and the Sea" is close to the literary genre of the parable, which is based on allegories and provides for some moral science. Many critics accepted it as a parable and tried to interpret the whole story of the old man as a symbolic depiction of the struggle between good and evil, the struggle of man with nature. Hemingway himself protested against such a one-sided and simplified interpretation of his work, defending the realistic basis of the story. He said: “No beautiful book will ever be written in such a way that the symbols in it are thought out in advance and then inserted into it. Such symbols pop up like raisins in raisin bread. Bread with raisins is beautiful, but plain bread is better.” In The Old Man and the Sea, I tried to create a real old man, a real sea, a real fish, and real sharks. But if I make them pretty well and pretty truthfully, they can mean a lot.”
Ernest Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea in 1951 in Cuba. In 1952 the book was published under the English title The old Man and the Sea.
This short story became not only the most famous, but also the last published work of Hemingway during his lifetime. Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954 for The Old Man and the Sea.
“Read what I write and look for nothing but your own pleasure. And if you find anything else, it will be your contribution to what you read. There has never been a good book that has come out of a preconceived symbol, baked into a book, like raisins in a sweet bun ... I tried to give a real old man and a real boy, a real sea and a real fish, and real sharks. And, if I managed to do it well enough and truthfully, they, of course, can be interpreted in different ways.
E. Hemingway
Information about the book "The Old Man and the Sea"
Date of writing: 1952
Year of publication: 2008
Title: The Old Man and the Sea
Author: Ernest Miller Hemingway
ISBN: 5-17-052511-7
Translator: E. Golysheva and B. Izakova
Copyright holder: IZD-VO "AST"
The history of the creation of the work "The Old Man and the Sea"
The first story about an old Cuban fisherman and a boy whose boat sailed across the ocean, drawn by a huge fish, was published in 1936 in Esquire magazine. In his documentary essay “On blue water. Gulf Stream Letter” Ernest Hemingway shared with readers the real story of a Cuban who caught the biggest fish in his life and could not bring it to the shores of Havana because of the sharks. Modern literary scholars believe that the writer's friend, the Cuban fisherman Gregory Fuentos, became the prototype of the protagonist. Some researchers believe that the artistic image of the old man was created from many fishermen who inhabited the Havanese village of Kochimare.
The main image of a fishing boat drifting in the ocean, the writer "peeped" during one of his sea voyages. According to eyewitnesses, Hemingway was extremely interested in a small boat moving after a huge fish. The writer asked his captain to come closer to the boat and came across a terrible curse from an old man sitting in it. Together with the old fisherman there was also a boy ... In order not to interfere with fishing, Hemingway moved away from the boat at a decent distance, but all day long he watched the fascinating process from afar.
Hemingway was himself a fisherman. By the age of eight, he knew the names of all the plants and animals that surrounded him in the Midwest, but he had a particular fondness for water creatures. It is no coincidence that Hemingway caught the largest flying fish in the Atlantic. Having conceived the work of his whole life, the writer again turned to the topic that was most familiar and interesting to him. The story was completed in October 1951 and published in September 1952 in Life magazine. And that old man, fishing in the ocean, Hemingway brought food at sunset, but was met with the same abuse of a man engaged in hard male labor.
Quotes from Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"
We are all made for our own business, he thought. Your talent is expressed in how you earn your living.
Isn't it strange that not loving her, replacing love with a lie, he could not give her more for her money than to other women whom he really loved.
There is no point in thinking about what is sinful and what is not sinful. It's too late to think about it now, and besides, let those who are paid for it deal with sins. Let them think about what sin is.
“…Why do old people wake up so early?” Is it really to prolong this day for yourself at least?
- Don't know. I only know that young people sleep long and soundly.
— Big fish come in September. Everyone knows how to fish in May.
- Fish, - he said, - I love and respect you very much. But I will kill you before the evening comes.
“It is impossible for a person to remain alone in old age,” he thought. - However, it is inevitable. I should not forget to eat the tuna before it goes rotten, because I must not lose strength. I would not forget to eat it in the morning, even if I am not at all hungry. Don't forget, he repeated to himself.
I wonder why she suddenly surfaced, the old man thought. “You'd think she just surfaced to show me how big she is. Well, now I know. Too bad I can't show her what kind of person I am. Suppose she would then see my reduced hand. Let her think better of me than I really am, and then I will really be better. I wish I was a fish and that I had everything that she has, and not just the will and quick wits.
You didn't kill a fish just to sell it to others to keep yourself alive, he thought. - You killed her out of pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved this fish while it was alive, and you love it now. If you love someone, it is not a sin to kill him. Or maybe, on the contrary, even more sinful?
Preface to The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The story "The Old Man and the Sea" is about the meaning of life. Literary critics call this work a philosophical parable. Why?
A parable is an allegorical story with a moralizing conclusion. Ideal, wisdom is always contained in a parable.
What is the meaning of life?
This is what a person lives for, what he believes in, what he aspires to. I would like to recall the words of A.P. Chekhov. It was this writer that Hemingway admired and diligently studied from him for brevity and content, the mastery of subtext. Chekhov has a story "On the Way", one of the characters of which says: "If a Russian person does not believe in God, then this means that he believes in something else."
In the drama “Three Sisters”, one of the sisters, Masha, thinks: “It seems to me that a person should be a believer or seek faith, otherwise his life is empty, empty.”
A person needs faith. But what should he believe? The answer is Hemingway's decision is contained in the story "The Old Man and the Sea".
The work has everything that the modern world lacks, and especially young people. It is no coincidence that in a television interview after the Nobel Prize, Hemingway called his work “a message to the younger generation”
The Old Man and the Sea) - a story by American writer Ernest Hemingway, written in Bimini (Bahamas) and published in 1952. Hemingway's last known work of fiction published during his lifetime. Tells the story of old man Santiago, a Cuban fisherman, about his struggle on the high seas with a giant marlin, which became the biggest prey of his life.Plot
84 days old Cuban fisherman Santiago goes out to sea and can't catch anything, so they start counting him salao, the most unlucky. And only his little friend Manolin continues to help him, although his father forbids him to fish with old Santiago and orders him to go to sea with successful fishermen. The boy often visits the old man in his hut, helps carry tackle, cook food, they often talk about American baseball and their favorite player, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that the next day he will go out further into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba into the Strait of Florida, confident that his streak of bad luck must come to an end.
On the 85th day, the old man goes into the Gulf Stream, as usual, on his sailboat, throws in the forest, and by noon luck smiles at him - a marlin about 5.5 meters long comes across the hook. The old man regrets that there is no boy with him - it is not easy to cope alone. For two days and two nights, the marlin takes the boat far out to sea, it is not enough to catch a fish - you still have to swim to the shore with it. Injured by the woods, Santiago has compassion and understanding for his opponent, often calling him brother. He also claims that he will not allow anyone to eat this marlin due to its high merit.
On the third day, the fish begin to swim around the boat. An exhausted Santiago, almost delirious, spends all his last strength to pull the fish to the surface and plant a harpoon in it. Santiago ties the marlin to the side of the boat and heads home, thinking about the high price he will get for it in the market and the people he will feed.
Sharks gather at the old man's boat for blood from fish wounds. The old man fights them, kills a large mako shark with his harpoon, but loses his weapon. He makes a new harpoon by tying his knife to the end of an oar to fend off another shark attack; in this way, he kills five sharks, forcing the rest to retreat. But here the forces are unequal, and with the onset of night, the sharks devour almost the entire marlin carcass, leaving only a skeleton of the spine, tail and head. Santiago realizes that now he has become completely unlucky, and, admitting defeat, tells the sharks that they actually killed the man and his dreams. When Santiago reaches the shore before dawn the next day, he struggles up to his hut, heaving a heavy mast on his shoulder, and leaving the skeleton of a fish on the shore. Entering the house, he lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
The next day, many fishermen gather around the boat, to which the fish skeleton was still tied. One of the fishermen measures the skeleton with a rope. Pedrico takes the head of the fish for himself, and the rest of the fishermen tell Manolin to tell the old man that they sympathize with him. Tourists at a nearby cafe mistake a marlin for a shark. Manolin, worried about the old man, cries when he sees his wounded hands and makes sure that he is breathing. The boy brought newspapers and coffee to the hut. When the old man wakes up, they agree to go out to sea together again. Falling asleep again, Santiago dreams of his youth: lions on the African coast.
History of creation
In May 1953, Ernest Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize for his work, in 1954 - the Nobel Prize in Literature. The success of The Old Man and the Sea made Hemingway world famous. The story is studied in schools, and it continues to bring royalties from all over the world.
Significance in literature
The idea of this work matured in Hemingway for many years. As early as 1936, in the essay "On Blue Water" for Esquire magazine, he described a similar episode that happened to a Cuban fisherman.
Already after the publication of the story, Hemingway revealed his creative idea in one interview. He said that the book "The Old Man and the Sea" could have more than a thousand pages, every villager could find his place in this book, all the ways in which they earn a living, how they are born, study, raise children.
About the party of prisoners in which Pierre was, during his entire movement from Moscow, there was no new order from the French authorities. On October 22, this party was no longer with the troops and convoys with which it left Moscow. Half of the convoy with breadcrumbs, which followed them for the first transitions, was beaten off by the Cossacks, the other half went ahead; the foot cavalrymen who went ahead, there was not one more; they all disappeared. The artillery, which the first crossings could be seen ahead of, was now replaced by the huge convoy of Marshal Junot, escorted by the Westphalians. Behind the prisoners was a convoy of cavalry things.
From Vyazma, the French troops, who had previously marched in three columns, now marched in one heap. Those signs of disorder that Pierre noticed on the first halt from Moscow have now reached the last degree.
The road they were on was paved on both sides with dead horses; ragged people, lagging behind different teams, constantly changing, then joined, then again lagged behind the marching column.
Several times during the campaign there were false alarms, and the soldiers of the convoy raised their guns, fired and ran headlong, crushing each other, but then again gathered and scolded each other for vain fear.
These three gatherings, marching together - the cavalry depot, the depot of prisoners and Junot's convoy - still constituted something separate and integral, although both, and the other, and the third quickly melted away.
In the depot, which had at first been one hundred and twenty wagons, now there were no more than sixty; the rest were repulsed or abandoned. Junot's convoy was also abandoned and several wagons were recaptured. Three wagons were plundered by backward soldiers from Davout's corps who came running. From the conversations of the Germans, Pierre heard that more guards were placed on this convoy than on prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, was shot on the orders of the marshal himself because a silver spoon that belonged to the marshal was found on the soldier.
Most of these three gatherings melted the depot of prisoners. Of the three hundred and thirty people who left Moscow, now there were less than a hundred. The prisoners, even more than the saddles of the cavalry depot and than Junot's convoy, burdened the escorting soldiers. Junot's saddles and spoons, they understood that they could be useful for something, but why were the hungry and cold soldiers of the convoy standing guard and guarding the same cold and hungry Russians, who were dying and lagging behind the road, whom they were ordered to shoot - it was not only incomprehensible, but also disgusting. And the escorts, as if afraid in the sad situation in which they themselves were, not to give in to the feeling of pity for the prisoners that was in them and thereby worsen their situation, treated them especially gloomily and strictly.
In Dorogobuzh, while, having locked the prisoners in the stable, the escort soldiers left to rob their own shops, several captured soldiers dug under the wall and ran away, but were captured by the French and shot.
The former order, introduced at the exit from Moscow, that the captured officers should go separately from the soldiers, had long been destroyed; all those who could walk walked together, and from the third passage Pierre had already connected again with Karataev and the lilac bow-legged dog, which had chosen Karataev as its master.
With Karataev, on the third day of leaving Moscow, there was that fever from which he lay in the Moscow hospital, and as Karataev weakened, Pierre moved away from him. Pierre did not know why, but since Karataev began to weaken, Pierre had to make an effort on himself in order to approach him. And going up to him and listening to those quiet groans with which Karataev usually lay down at rest, and feeling the now intensified smell that Karataev emitted from himself, Pierre moved away from him and did not think about him.
In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, with his life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in satisfying natural human needs, and that all misfortune comes not from lack, but from excess; but now, in these last three weeks of the campaign, he learned another new, comforting truth - he learned that there is nothing terrible in the world. He learned that just as there is no position in which a person would be happy and completely free, so there is no position in which he would be unhappy and not free. He learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and that this limit is very close; that the man who suffered because one leaf was wrapped in his pink bed, suffered in the same way as he suffered now, falling asleep on the bare, damp earth, cooling one side and warming the other; that when he used to put on his narrow ballroom shoes, he suffered in exactly the same way as now, when he was completely barefoot (his shoes had long been disheveled), his feet covered with sores. He learned that when he, as it seemed to him, of his own free will married his wife, he was no more free than now, when he was locked up at night in the stable. Of all that he later called suffering, but which he then hardly felt, the main thing was his bare, worn, scabbed feet. (Horse meat was tasty and nutritious, the nitrate bouquet of gunpowder used instead of salt was even pleasant, there was not much cold, and it was always hot during the day on the move, and at night there were fires; the lice that ate the body warmed pleasantly.) One thing was hard. First, it's the legs.
On the second day of the march, having examined his sores by the fire, Pierre thought it impossible to step on them; but when everyone got up, he walked limping, and then, when warmed up, he walked without pain, although in the evening it was still more terrible to look at his feet. But he did not look at them and thought about something else.
Now only Pierre understood the whole force of human vitality and the saving power of shifting attention invested in a person, similar to that saving valve in steam engines that releases excess steam as soon as its density exceeds a certain norm.
He did not see or hear how backward prisoners were shot, although more than a hundred of them had already died in this way. He did not think about Karataev, who was weakening every day and, obviously, was soon to undergo the same fate. Even less did Pierre think of himself. The more difficult his position became, the more terrible the future was, the more independent of the position in which he was, joyful and soothing thoughts, memories and ideas came to him.
On the 22nd, at noon, Pierre walked uphill along a muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the unevenness of the road. From time to time he glanced at the familiar crowd surrounding him, and again at his feet. Both were equally his own and familiar to him. The lilac, bow-legged Gray ran merrily along the side of the road, occasionally, as proof of his agility and contentment, tucking his hind paw and jumping on three and then again on all four, rushing barking at the crows that were sitting on the carrion. Gray was more cheerful and smoother than in Moscow. On all sides lay the meat of various animals - from human to horse, in various degrees of decomposition; and the walking people kept the wolves away, so that Gray could eat as much as he wanted.
Plot
For 84 days, old Cuban fisherman Santiago goes out to sea and can't catch anything. Even his little friend Manolin almost stopped helping him, although they are still friends and often talk about this and that. On the 85th day, the old man goes to sea, as usual, on his sailboat, and luck smiles at him - a marlin about 5.5 meters long comes across the hook. The old man regrets that there is no boy with him, it is not easy to cope alone. Within a few days, a real battle takes place between the fish and the person. The old man was able to handle with his bare hands a fish that was longer than his boat and armed with a sword. But the marlin takes the boat far into the sea, it is not enough to catch a fish - you still have to swim to the shore with it. On the blood from the wounds of the fish, sharks gather to the old man's boat and devour the fish. The old man enters into a fight with them, but here the forces are not equal. While he swam to the shore, only a skeleton remained of the fish.
Characters
- Santiago - old fisherman
- Manolin - the boy next door
Screen adaptations
- - "The Old Man and the Sea" - a film by John Sturges
- - "The Old Man and the Sea" - cartoon by Alexander Petrov
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See what "The Old Man and the Sea (story)" is in other dictionaries:
The Old Man And The Sea Genre: Novel
The Old Man and the Sea: The Old Man and the Sea story by Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea film by John Sturges based on the story by Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea cartoon by Alexander Petrov based on the story by Hemingway ... Wikipedia
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AND; pl. genus. to her; and. 1. A narrative work with a plot less complex than a novel, and usually smaller in length. Documentary item. Collection of stories. Stories of writers of the beginning of the century. P. about unhappy love. Household, historical, military item 2 ... encyclopedic Dictionary
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Books
- The Old Man and the Sea. Islands and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway. "The Old Man and the Sea" . The story is dedicated to "tragic stoicism": in the face of the cruelty of the world, a person, even losing, must maintain courage and dignity. "Islands and the sea". Sincere and…
"The Old Man and the Sea"(The Old Man And The Sea) is a 1952 short story by Ernest Hemingway. Tells the story of old man Santiago, a Cuban fisherman, and his struggle with a giant fish that became the biggest prey of his life.
History of creation
The idea of this work matured in Hemingway for many years. Back in 1936, in the essay "On Blue Water" for Esquire magazine, he described a similar episode that happened to a Cuban fisherman.
The story itself was published in September 1952 in Life magazine. Already after the publication of the story, Hemingway revealed his creative idea in one interview. He said that the book "The Old Man and the Sea" could have more than a thousand pages, every villager could find his place in this book, all the ways in which they earn a living, how they are born, study, raise children. It's all well done by other writers. In literature, you are limited by what has been satisfactorily done before. So I should try to find out something else. First, I have tried to omit everything unnecessary in order to convey my experience to the readers in such a way that after reading it becomes part of their experience and seems to have really happened. This is very difficult to achieve and I have worked very hard on it. In any case, in short, this time I was incredibly lucky, and I was able to convey the experience in full, and at the same time such an experience that no one has ever conveyed. In 1953, Ernest Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize for his work, in 1954 - the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Plot
For 84 days, old Cuban fisherman Santiago goes out to sea and can't catch anything. And only his little friend Manolin continues to help him, although his father forbids him to go fishing with old Santiago. They are still friends and often talk about this and that. On the 85th day, the old man goes to sea, as usual, on his sailing boat, and luck smiles at him - a marlin about 5.5 meters long comes across the hook. The old man regrets that there is no boy with him, it is not easy to cope alone. Within a few days, a real battle takes place between the fish and the person. The old man was able to handle with his bare hands a fish that was longer than his boat and armed with a sword. But the marlin takes the boat far into the sea, it is not enough to catch a fish - you still have to swim to the shore with it. On the blood from the wounds of the fish, sharks gather to the old man's boat and devour the fish. The old man enters into a fight with them, but here the forces are not equal. When he reaches the shore, the fish is left with only a skeleton, a head and a sword, which Santiago gives the boy as a keepsake.