The novel, The Old Man and the Sea, is a story about an old man, Santiago, who experienced great adversity but did not give up. The author, Ernest Hemingway, describes how an old man uses his experience, his endurance and his hopefulness to catch a huge marlin, the biggest fish he has ever caught in his life. The old man experienced social-emotional, physical, and mental adversity. However, despite the overwhelming challenges, he did not allow them to hold him back but instead continued to pursue his goal of catching a fish with determination. Santiago’s character, his actions and the event in the novel reveals an underlying theme that even when one is facing incredible struggles, one should persevere.
In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish,” a fisherman catches an imposing fish. As the fisherman holds the magnificent creature out of the water with his/her ‘hook fast in the corner of the fish’s mouth,’ he/she begins to admire the fish for having obviously fought long and hard all its life (Bishop 3). In a sense, the speaker compares the fish to a war veteran who had seen one too many battles. On at least five occasions, five other fishermen had attempted to reel-in the beast given the “five old pieces of fish line” and “their five big hooks” embedded in its mouth (Bishop 51). Bearing this in mind, the speaker thinks of the fish-line and hooks as battle-scars and consequently, looks upon the fish as a skilled survivor rather than a regular,
The Boat by Alistair MacLeod is about a boy who grew up in a fishing town and wanted to escape it retelling his story. The unmanned narrator starts the story by telling the readers of his first boat ride. We learn from the story that his father is a fisherman and his mother has always known this life of fishing. So the narrators entire life was spend on a boat; from reading thee we will learn that the boat is a reoccurring theme and it is kind of personified. The we learn that the narrator’s father is an avid reader and is always reading.
Fishing is what really made him happy. The boy learned a lesson that many people still need to learn today. Do not let others influence the way one may act or speak. Be true to oneself, and happiness will
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.
In the novel The Old Man and The Sea, written by Ernest Hemingway a credible author, the use of figurative language was not sparse. Figurative language enhances the story line and makes the book interesting and detailed. The most notable uses of figurative language were similes, metaphors, personification, idioms, and hyperboles.
and I will go fishing.” (Trumbo 29) This shows the reader how uncomfortable and nerve racking it was for the son to ask his father these questions, which helps in better understanding the
In The Old Man and the Sea, the old man serves as an archetypal Hero throughout the book and experiences a daunting and life threatening task to catch a fish and end an 84 day drought. To begin with, the old man possesses all the necessary qualities to be characterized as the Hero. During the 84 day drought in which he went without a fish, he was still confident in his abilities and wouldn’t give up. He even took the chance of going farther out into sea than any other boat dared.
It seems that the fish is actually the child, which could not walk at the beginning of his life. This metaphor conveys the helplessness that the child feels during this period. He feels like a fish that cannot swim. Moreover, the author uses imagery to make the reader feel the child 's anxiety, ' 'Under your bed sat the wolf and he made a shadow when cars passed by at night ' '. The child has a wolf under her bed, but she cannot do anything.
For Jack, when he was thrown under the water, “He barely made it back up.” He must have tried really hard to get back up. Another time that someone showed perseverance was when Jack’s father was waiting for Jack on the boat, and died looking for him, Jack said, “ I knew that he would never have left without me,” Even though his father knew he might die, he looked for his son and would stay on the boat no matter what. Another moment that required perseverance was when Jack was on the lifeboat and “Freezing waves washed over them.” Even though they were freezing, they stayed on the boat and patiently waited.
In addition, the last way that the short story demonstrates grief is when the main character is fishing and she immediately gets the determination to catch the fish she is chasing,“It occurs to me if I fall, I will not have the strength to regain my footing”(36). The reader then gets the feeling that the main character is upset and irritated at the same time. The reader begins to think that it may be that she is a really good fisher and she does not want to let the fish go. The main character is imaging the fish as her father and if she lets the fish escape her, then she would not have the strength to hold herself together anymore. If she lets her father go then she knows that the wave of sorrow will finally hit her and he will finally be gone.
Every novel or stories gives a fundamental ideas or lesson for the readers. Most of the lesson are informative and it brings a changes to the readers mind. There will be a universal of an ideas explored in a literature and readers can abstract numerous themes depending on each individual. Similarly, in the novel “the old man and the sea” Hemingway depicted several themes related to nature, people and so on. However determination can also be one of the theme for the readers because the old man, Santiago didn’t gave up fishing even if he had cramp but he took this as an encouragement in his old age. 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.
Is perseverance is an essential human quality? In life, we are faced with endless misfortune and difficult decisions. A person can think of how they do in each difficult situation they face the same way a character in a movie goes through the character arc. An example of this is when your mom tells you she can't afford to send you to your favorite summer camp this year. You have two options, Accept that your family can't afford it or raise the money needed by getting a job. Now if really wanted to go camping you would get a job and save the money for summer camp Along the way you would run into issues because of the choice you made to reach your goal. Problems like social issues, for instance, friends getting mad that your too busy for them
When darkness consumes you and the pain becomes unbearable, you look to the light, to perseverance to guide you through the nightmare you face. In Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea, one of the protagonists, Emilia, faces a myriad of emotional and physical hardships throughout the novel. With calamitous tragedies and bone-chilling circumstances, what does Emilia do? Bruised and battered, she perseveres through her hardships, showing how much a person can endure when they persist. Sepetys takes the consequences of Emilia’s pain and emotional damage to new heights with her war-themed novel; as a result of this, perseverance is articulated amongst many other traits that this character possesses, showing how imperative of a quality it is. A theme that is profoundly emphasized in Salt To The Sea is that in order to face the emotional and physical hardships life opposes you with, you need perseverance.
Pablo Neruda's choice of diction and literary devices combine to give off a very calm and soft tone. Neruda, throughout the piece conveys a sense of calmness using sounds and words such as: “sea”, “me”, and “waves . Each of these words fly off of the tongue with ease and grace, similar to how the seas waves are. Neruda creates the image of being near the sea by his diction by choosing words with smooth sounds such as: “me” ,”rose”, “foam”, and “vast”. These words create the soft sounds like what we would see at the sea and that was Neruda’s goal. His vision was not only that we can imagine the sea by the sounds used, but to physically see it with our own eyes by the structure of the poem.