Psychoanalysis In Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea

By applying the theory of psychoanalysis in the novel The Old Man and the Sea I find that the journey that the old man had is actually took place in his mind rather in the sea, and the real struggle was between his conscious and subconscious not between him and the fish. Santiago was introduced in the beginning of the story as an old fisherman, in which Hemingway described him as “thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles...”, “...his hands had the deep-creased scars... But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosion in a fishless desert”. The old man was unlucky man who was called by the people as “Salalo” which is the worst form of the unluckiness, because he had not caught anything for eighty-four days which leads him to loss his reputation as a good fisherman, and because of that, the parents of his single assent and friend Manolin forced him to leave Santiago and find another lucky boat.
On the other hand, Santiago was brave, confident, cheerful, determined and optimistic person, not letting anything in life rattle him. “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated". Even though everyone around him was making fun of him for not catching anything, Santiago did not give up and refused to be discouraged. He always

His fight for a big fish was just to satisfy his id which is his desire to catch a fish, Santiago believes that he was born as fisherman man that’s why all his desires was to catch a fish as he said “Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for” and by catching a fish he only can save his career and reputation. Moreover, he went there also to satisfy his superego; to prove to the people there that he is still the good fisherman and he still has the ability and