Though the “Old Man and the Sea”, portrays Santiago’s struggle, his experience from his journey betters him for the future. Ernest Hemingway’s novel is about an old man, who embarks on a journey to catch a fish. While on his journey, he struggles to keep himself together. He has to stay awake for long hours, on barely any food. Lacking energy, but not determination, Santiago pulls through and catches the great marlin. As Santiago returns, he encounters more dangers. Desperately protecting his catch, Santiago defends himself and the marlin, from sharks. In vain, Santiago returns home, with a skeleton, except for the head and tail of the marlin. In Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”, Santiago faces the trials of becoming a fully …show more content…
The majority of Santiago’s dreams consist of a group of lions, known as a pride. The pride of lions, expresses the abundance amount of pride Santiago contains. As Santiago faces the mysteries of the seas, he returns home to what seems empty handed. Santiago is physically broken down, with bumps, bruises and cuts all over his body. Tourists and citizens all alike, look upon what Santiago has brought with him, a pile of bones and little to no meat. Though of his failure, Santiago has not been discouraged and takes pride in what he has accomplished. Through his journey, Santiago gains valuable experience in the art of fishing. As he has faced struggles, he can prepare for the worst. Also, Santiago has not been discouraged by his failure, expressing loss with dignity. When Santiago sleeps, “[He] was dreaming about lions” (127). Still, Santiago dreams about lions, which brings him full circle. As his pride remains intact, he resists being discouraged by failure, but ends up home his his dignity and experience for the
Another short story within this book, “The Ledge”, depicts the life of a man who’s spent his life providing for his family as a fishermen. The work ethic seen in this man and the traditions his and his family share could easily be represented by many others on the coast of
Santiago understands that everything from a grain of sand to God himself shares the same physical and spiritual essence. In coming to this understanding, Santiago also believes he can “conquer the world.” (Coelho,157). He realizes the importance of hope on his journey and that he can and will persevere to the end.
Santiago’s last step to completing his personal legend was walking through the desert, to find his treasure and completing it. Thus, showing the symbols and meanings behind these little puzzle pieces in the journey and being rewarded with love and treasure helping to support my thesis, through seeing and understanding symbols behind the world people can learn about their own personal legend and live life to the
While Santiago was on the quest to find his Personal Legend, he began to forge a close relationship with a caravan driver that was taking him to an oasis. The caravan driver did not look like much, but he had proven to be a very wise man that has much wisdom to offer. During their voyage, tribe wars had begun to take place and everyone seemed to be worried about it except for this driver. Santiago had asked why this was so, and the caravan driver had responded that he does not think about the past, and he does not worry about the future. Instead, he only thinks about what is happening right in front of him and that by doing so he had found the key to his happiness.
While at the Oasis of Al-Fayoum, the elder chieftain of the oasis tells Santiago the story of Joseph of Egypt. Joseph was enslaved for being a dreamer, but he persevered and managed to become an important counselor to the Pharaoh of Egypt. This Personal Legend could have suited Santiago because of his connection to the Soul of the World. The Soul of the World is a spiritual unity that binds all forms of nature together. Santiago knew he wanted to follow his dreams; it was helpful when he learned that “When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it” because he knew he was now destined to complete his goal, and not somebody else’s (Coelho 64).
Sandra Benitez writes about a 9-year old boy, Nicolas, in between the 1980’s Salvadoran civil war in the novel The Weight of All Thing. The book starts of at a funeral where Nicolas’ mother, Lety Veras, dies. Not knowing she is dead he carries on to find his grandfather, Tata, at his home in El Rancho. Tata and Nicolas soon find themselves in between the civil war, having their home taken over by Guerrilla forces. Throughout the book he struggles to stay alive and cope with the war surrounding him.
In the novel “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho there is a young shepherd named Santiago who is in search for his personal legend. Santiago’s personal legend is to find the treasure at the pyramids. Throughout his journey, there are a lot of emotions especially the emotion fear. Santiago encountered a lot of challenges like crossing the desert, being in a war and turning himself into the wind. He learned the different levels of fear; fearing fear, being in fear, and overcoming fear.
Decision-making through the theory of Existentialism Existentialism is a philosophy which means finding self or finding meaning of life. It is theory which talks about freedom. Paulo Coelho in the novel The Alchemist talks about Santiago’s dilemmas and how he takes decision.
The punishment of hunger, and that he is against something that he does not comprehend, is everything”. These two examples constitute part of his journey on the sea, by comparing things like the brotherhood between the fish and his two
Santiago has an epiphany when he realizes that if you never change and take risks you will never move forward. He wants to find his “personal legend,” or true desire, and to obtain this he needs to change his own nature. He must be willing to give up whatever is necessary to achieve this goal, including freedom. On Santiago’s journey he becomes employed by a crystal merchant that never achieved his personal legend. The merchant resisted change and never accomplished his dreams.
Before finding his treasure, he must be courageous and clever to survive the desert and the danger that he encounters. This courage enables him to reach the treasure and fulfill his Personal Legend. The determination Santiago exhibits is what allows him to earn his fortune and decide his
He thought it’s waste of time and money. Later in the novel, the man who beats Santiago does not believe his own dream, but when he describes his dream to Santiago, Santiago recognizes it as an omen telling him where to find the treasure (Coelho 167). Thus, it’s the person loss as he ignored dream. The importance of actual, sleeping dreams parallels the importance of personal, symbolic dreams as embodied by Personal Legends. Thus, dreams require backbreaking work and determination to sacrifice anything to make it come true.
His strength of mind is still strong like his youth. Therefore this essay will emphasize on the old man’s struggle against marlin, battle of willingness and his bravery which supports the theme determination. The old man Santiago struggles against marlin over day and night. Santiago travels far beyond from his home because he needs to reveal his strength and prove that he is still able to be the fisherman that he once was.
He is so poor that he sometimes does not even have food. Manolin brings him his supper, given to him by the owner of the Terrace (19-20). On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago goes far out into the Gulf Stream away from all the other fisherman to catch a big fish. He is “alone and out of sight of land” when he catches “the biggest fish that he [has] ever seen and bigger than he [has] ever heard of” (63). To prevent the giant marlin from getting away, Santiago holds onto the line using only his back, arms, and hands.
Hemingway presents the elements of failure and suffering in The Old Man and the Sea by depicting several instances of suffering and failure which the Old Man, Santiago, has to go through throughout the course of the novel. According to Hemingway, life is just one big struggle. In the beginning of the novel itself, The Old Man, is presented as a somewhat frail old man who is still struggling with his life as well as his past failures. His skiff even had a sail which bore great resemblance to “the flag of permanent defeat”, with its multiple patches all over.