The Old Man And The Sea Theme Essay

“Every cloud has a silver lining.” These were the words muttered by John Milton when he wrote his masque Comus. This idiom could very well be applied to my book analysis book The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, and the theme of if one believes in themselves then life will get better over time. The theme of life getting better over time resonates throughout this novel, because the protagonist Santiago is bullied by his colleagues and is almost broke but still finds a way to gain the admiration of others. At the beginning of the book life does not look so good for the protagonist Santiago, and his friend Maolin, as they are on an 84-day bad luck streak, labeled “salao” or the worst form of unlucky, and teased by the other fishermen. Yet Santiago raises his head high and remains cheerful and undefeated. His partner adds to his confidence by stating “There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only you”(Hemingway 23). The quote provides meaning to the theme by showing that even though Santiago has not made any money for 84 days Manolin still cares

The books are quite similar with both of them starting off with losing a loved one, either to death or because of other reasons, the protagonist then decides to get out of their rut they need to make some large changes to their lifestyle. The outcome of their changes though is what sets both of these classics apart. In Banner in the Sky Ruudi Matt, the protagonist, earns the admiration of his deceased father's colleagues by being the first person to climb the citadel, as a kid. In The Old Man and the Sea Santiago fails to catch the fish that would make him rich but has no antipathy because he pulls up one of the largest marlin skeletons in the world, so fantastically large in fact that passersby mistook it for a shark. Both of the protagonists in each book started from the ground up and