In his story, “Descent into the Maelstrom”, Edgar Allen Poe writes of an old fisherman who claims to have gone through the monstrous whirlpool, “Moskoe-strom,” lasting the duration of 6 hours. The fisherman acts as a guide to the narrator as he leads him up the mountain Helseggen, where the old fisherman tells him the story of how his hair turned grey in a day. It might be argued, though, that this story was nothing short of a tall tale. There are numerous points in this his story that indicate the old man might be lying. How could his hair turn grey in a day? Why did he show so little emotion when describing the death of his brothers? Why would his old shipmates, who sailed nearby waters, not believe his story after seeing the condition he …show more content…
From the very beginning of this passage we get a good glimpse of this. After leading the narrator up the mountain, he begins to talk about the day he survived the maelstrom. He prefaces the story saying “It took less than a single day to change these hairs from jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?” (1). Firstly, while the idea that stress can cause hair to grey is a fairly well-known myth, there is little science to back it up at this point in time. While it has been observed that people under stress get grey hair sooner, for it to occur in a day is nothing short of an extreme exaggeration (Ballantyne). Secondly, almost immediately after stating the overwhelming fear this event instilled in him, the old man threw half his body over the edge of the cliff, hanging on only by his elbows. The narrator notes how “carelessly” he does this, possibly indicating his own doubt (1). Being “fifteen or sixteen hundred feet” in the air, the large majority of people wouldn’t even step closer than one foot from the edge of the cliff, while this old man with weak limbs and, “frightened at a shadow,” was able to hoist his entire body over the edge (1). Even the narrator was terrified just from watching the old man to the point where he had to sit
He was naive and unprepared, and ran away from his problems without really thinking through what he was doing to himself, and to the people who loved him.
During this time, Louie and two other crew members faced extreme conditions, including starvation, dehydration, and exposure to the elements while being lost at sea. In the novel it states, “He was a body on a raft, dying of thirst. He felt words whisper from his swollen lips. It was a promise thrown at heaven, a promise he had not kept. If you save me, I will serve you forever.
He felt off the whole time while he was doing the dishes that day and he knew something bad was about to happen. “I focused all of my attention on Mother’s face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blurred object fly from her hand. A sharp pain erupted from just above my stomach. I tried to remain standing, but my legs gave out, and my world turned black.
His usual chipper attitude was replaced by a real fear of the danger he was in. He is in no condition to even move around to go looking for help and has lost all hope of survival. While his issues began with the cut off access to the real world because of the dangerous river, they only multiplied once he started to starve making him realize there was almost no chance of him making it out of the wild
As well as his reference to the details of the horrific travel and humanitarian conditions during the transatlantic crossing. He also talks about the difficult circumstances he faced and in the end he was able to
What did the narrator do in light of his experience on the sailboat? Do you think his reaction is a typical one of someone facing their
He was afraid to lose his father, he would be alone and wouldn’t have the feeling of safety you get when your with your parents. His father helped him gain the hope that would help him survive.
It was believed that his father was his own slave owner. At such a young age, his mother passes away due to illness. Because of the slavery scene, he was not allowed to attend the funeral of his own mother. He was in much pain but not because of his mother's death, but because they were separated for the majority of his life, they did not get the opportunity to
In other words he bends to pressure even though he isn’t ready to be saved. This leads to another theme in the story – sadness. He is heartbreakingly sad for not seeing Jesus and for lying to his aunt. “But I was really crying because I couldn 't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church that I hadn 't seen Jesus, and that now I didn 't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn 't come to help me.
Whenever you are focused and ready, time goes by much faster and that is what this simile is referring to. The mountain is described as a “huge fin of exfoliated tone.” (Page 135). This metaphor shows the difficulty of the journey to come and what this trek really will bring. Alex knows going into the wild that it will be a formidable task, however he is willing and feels he does not have much to lose with what is going on in his life at the time.
This is also shown on page 173 and it states, “ I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out-“Who’s there?”. This creates suspense because, the reader knows that the narrator has already came into the old man’s room for seven days before this. Although, each one of those nights the man was asleep so the eye was closed, but now he’s and his eye is open and the narrator would only kill him if his vulture eye was open. This then causes the reader to feel anxious and many other emotions that suspense would give you.
I think he was only afraid to face what was happening when he was close to
He feels strength from the setting and does not realize the danger he is in. After the first forty miles of his journey he claims, “the sun was beginning to beat down, but I barely noticed it. The cool pines and rushing rivers of Yosemite had my name written all over them.” As a result of his description of
Throughout the story, three major details of the narrator’s psyche are confirmed. First, we learned of the narrator’s deceitfulness. Every morning he lies to the old man with the least bit of guilt. The next continues to prove the madness as the narrator feels utter joy from the terror of another. Lastly, the narrator fabricates that the old man is simply not home to assure the officers.
The battle that The Old Man fights with the marlin, as well as the daunting task of defending the marlin from the countless sharks that follow the skiff, are two points in the novel where Hemingway really conveys the sense of struggling and suffering. This is how Hemingway tries to convey an underlying theme of the constant struggle between man and nature, by depicting the struggle between The Old Man and the Marlin, against all odds. The Old Man considers the fact that capturing the Marlin is such a great task for him since the Marlin is trying just as hard to evade and escape from The Old Man’s reach. Throughout this struggle, The Old Man, who eventually becomes very fatigued, keeps telling himself to push through the pain and bear it like a real man would. He pushes past the faintness and dizziness he experiences, he pushes himself to see beyond the black spots in his weary vision and he pushes past the pain in his hands to catch the Marlin which puts up a great fight against this frail old man.