Hemingway the old man and the sea analysis. Analysis of "The Old Man and the Sea" by Hemingway

The writing

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) is one of the most popular and influential American writers of the 20th century, best known for his novels and short stories.

The world was excited by the magnificent story "The Old Man and the Sea", the idea of ​​which was nurtured by the writer since the thirties.

"The Old Man and the Sea" is the last creative takeoff of the writer. The story was awarded a prestigious award. The story "The Old Man and the Sea" turned out to be a major event in literary life both in terms of the level of artistic skill and in terms of its problems.

This small, but extremely capacious story stands apart in Hemingway's work. It can be defined as a philosophical parable, but at the same time, its images, rising to symbolic generalizations, have an emphatically concrete, almost tangible character.

It can be argued that here, for the first time in Hemingway's work, a hard worker, who sees his life calling in his work, became a hero.

In the old man Santiago there is genuine greatness - he feels himself equal to the mighty forces of nature.

Old Santiago says about himself that he was born into the world in order to catch fish. This attitude towards his profession was also characteristic of Hemingway himself, who said more than once that he lives on earth in order to write.

Santiago knows everything about fishing, as Hemingway knew everything about it, having lived in Cuba for many years and became a recognized champion in hunting big fish. The whole story of how the old man manages to catch a huge fish, how he fights with her a long, exhausting struggle, how he defeats her, but, in turn, is defeated in the fight against sharks that eat his prey, is written with the greatest, to the subtleties , knowledge of the dangerous and difficult profession of a fisherman.

The sea appears in the story almost like a living being. “Other fishermen, younger, spoke of the sea as a space, as a rival, sometimes even as an enemy. The old man constantly thought of the sea as a woman who gives great favors or refuses them, and if she allows herself rash or unkind deeds, what can you do, such is her nature.

His struggle with fish takes on a symbolic meaning, becomes a symbol of human labor, human efforts in general. The old man talks to her as to an equal being.

The plot situation in the story "The Old Man and the Sea" develops tragically - the Old Man, in essence, is defeated in an unequal battle with sharks and loses his prey, which he got at such a high price.

The story "The Old Man and the Sea" is marked by the high and humane wisdom of the writer. It embodied that genuine humanistic ideal that Hemingway was looking for throughout his entire literary career. This path was marked by quests, delusions, through which many representatives of the creative intelligentsia of the West passed.

They, the old man and the boy, are old and small. In old age, people approach childhood, they are as helpless as children, they humble themselves and become children of God, that is, they used to be like them, but they forgot every day to hope only for His mercy. The boy in the text is the old man's apprentice. Fairy tales are for old people and children. Old people tell fairy tales, children learn the laws of the world in a generalized fairy tale form. Old people already know these laws, they have lived through them, so they understand fairy tales. They no longer need to know something specific, but some specific skill - they need to live not for society, but for God.

The old man's name is Santiago. His name is also symbolic, although, on the other hand, it makes him a real, less generalized "old man".

He constantly thought of the sea as a woman who gives great alms or refuses them, and if she allows herself rash or unkind deeds, what can you do, such is her nature.

The old man can no longer fight the sea himself, like those who consider the sea a man and an enemy. He no longer has the strength. Therefore, he considers the sea a mother (mother goddess, giving birth and killing), a woman, and asks her. The pride of the old man does not allow him to ask the boy, but only from her, from the mother, from the woman. And the fact that he is asking means that humility has already begun to come to him.

Other writings on this work

The emphatically realistic basis of the story requires an assessment of each small internal episode with indispensable consideration of the real psychological and physical state of the hero. Moreover, a single episode and even a single artistic detail must be considered in conjunction with other thematically related details and certainly in the general context of the narrative. This is the only way to find out, for example, whether the notes of defeat really sound in the story. Props, the realities of everyday life are also very important not only in terms of artistic authenticity and persuasiveness, but also in philosophical terms. However, their philosophical meaning is subordinate in relation to the corresponding role of wildlife and images of actors. The desire to absolutize the characteristics of one or another reality of everyday life, for example, sails, to substitute a person in its place is far from always justified. The philosophical meaning of the scarcity of things and their characteristics in the story lies primarily in emphasizing that we are talking about the very foundations of human existence, given in the most naked form. The matter is complicated by the fact that many separate details often reflect not one theme, but several, and all of them, in essence, are interconnected. In The Old Man and the Sea, we really do not find symbols, but a realistic story about the life of one person. But the way this person lives, how he thinks and feels, how he acts, makes you think about the principles of human existence, about the attitude to life. The small number of actors in the foreground, the paucity of material design does not lead to the destruction of social and other ties, does not create the impression of uniqueness. It's just that these connections find a special form of revelation and reflection in the story, they give the content the character of a generality. One cannot demand from a small philosophical work a demon-stration of social ties, a social structure that is excluded by its very form. That is why it seems to us unjustified to mechanically compare The Old Man with Hemingway's great novels, and the position of critics who regret the narrowness of the story is very vulnerable. Hemingway wrote about a lot in his long creative life. Of course, not all of his themes and not all, even the most important, problems of the century were reflected in The Old Man. But some essential aspects of human existence were philosophically generalized in this short story and illuminated from the standpoint of a triumphant Humanism In the center of the story is the figure of the old fisherman Santiago. This is no ordinary old man. So he speaks about himself, and in the process of getting acquainted with the action, the reader has time to be convinced of the validity of this self-characterization. The image of the old man from the first lines acquires the features of elation, heroism. This is a real person, living in accordance with his own labor code of ethics, but as if doomed to failure. The problem of victory and defeat, perhaps the first one, naturally arises in the story: “The old man was fishing alone on his boat in the Gulf Stream. For eighty-four days now he has gone to sea and has not caught a single fish.” These are the first words of the piece. On the eighty-fifth day, the old man caught a huge marlin, but could not deliver the prey home ... The sharks ate the fish. Looks like the old man has failed again. This impression is aggravated by the fact that the hero, who lost his prey, also had to endure suffering that would have broken a weaker person. Given the philosophical nature of the story, the theme of victory and defeat is of particular importance. In the future, the victorious motive is invariably clearly opposed to the notes of despair, fatigue, defeat. It is not the balance of victory and defeat that is established, but the triumph of the victorious, optimistic principle. Exhausted by the fight with the marlin, Santiago mentally turns to him: “You are ruining me, fish,” the old man thought. “This, of course, is your right. Never in my life have I seen a creature more enormous, beautiful, calm and noble than you. Well, kill me. I don't care who kills who." But there is a difference between what a man at the limit of his powers thinks and what he does. But the old man, even in his thoughts, does not allow himself to despair. He, like once Robert Jordan, controls the work of his consciousness all the time. “Again your head is confused, old man,” the quotation just quoted continues directly, and on the same page it is said that Santiago, feeling that “life in him freezes”, acts and wins, and not only fish, but also his own weakness, fatigue and old age: "He gathered all his pain, and all the rest of his strength, and all his long-lost pride, and threw them into a duel with the torment" that the fish endured, and then she turned over on her side and quietly swam on side, almost reaching with the sword to the skin of the boat, she almost swam past, long, wide, silver, intertwined with purple stripes, and it seemed that there would be no end to it. that all the torments of the old man, all his perseverance and perseverance were in vain: “My affairs were going too well. It couldn't continue like this. What appears to be a defeat on the concrete-event plane, on the moral plane, on the plane of philosophical generalization, turns out to be a victory. The whole story turns into a demonstration of the invincibility of a person even when external conditions are against bliss, when incredible difficulties and sufferings fall to his lot! Critics often compare The Old Man to Invincible. There, too, a person does not give up completely. But there is a fundamental difference between the two works. Manuel, for all his remarkable qualities, is the embodiment of that "code" that gives the loner the opportunity to stand against a hostile world. The courage of the matador is, as it were, directed at himself. With the old man it is different. Here it is time to turn to the question of what everything in the world is for, to the question of the meaning of life, that is, to one of the central problems of Hemingway's philosophical story. This moment is especially important, since the problem of victory and defeat was repeatedly posed in the post-war foreign literature. Sartre, Camus and other writers representing different areas of existentialist philosophy doom their heroes to defeat, emphasizing the futility of human efforts. In American criticism there are attempts to declare an existentialist and Hemingway. In the last quoted paragraph, the old man's thoughts do not accidentally merge with the thoughts of the author. The meaning of what is happening lies in the approval of the concept: life is a struggle. Only in such an uninterrupted struggle, which requires extreme exertion of physical and moral strength, does a person fully feel like a person, find happiness. Man's self-affirmation is in itself optimistic.

The writing

The emphatically realistic basis of the story requires an assessment of each small internal episode with indispensable consideration of the real psychological and physical state of the hero. Moreover, a single episode and even a single artistic detail must be considered in conjunction with other thematically related details and certainly in the general context of the narrative. This is the only way to find out, for example, whether the notes of defeat really sound in the story. Props, the realities of everyday life are also very important not only in terms of artistic authenticity and persuasiveness, but also in philosophical terms.

However, their philosophical meaning is subordinate in relation to the corresponding role of wildlife and images of actors. The desire to absolutize the characteristics of one or another reality of everyday life, for example, sails, to substitute a person in its place is far from always justified. The philosophical meaning of the scarcity of things and their characteristics in the story lies primarily in emphasizing that we are talking about the very foundations of human existence, given in the most naked form. The matter is complicated by the fact that many separate details often reflect not one theme, but several, and all of them, in essence, are interconnected.

In The Old Man and the Sea, we really do not find symbols, but a realistic story about the life of one person. But the way this person lives, how he thinks and feels, how he acts, makes you think about the principles of human existence, about the attitude to life. The small number of actors in the foreground, the paucity of material design does not lead to the destruction of social and other ties, does not create the impression of uniqueness. It's just that these connections find a special form of revelation and reflection in the story, they give the content the character of a generality. It is impossible to demand from a small philosophical work a demonstration of social ties, a social structure that is excluded by its very form. That is why it seems to us unjustified to mechanically compare The Old Man with Hemingway's great novels, and the position of critics who regret the narrowness of the story is very vulnerable "Hemingway wrote about a lot in his long creative life. Of course, not all of his themes and not all, even the most important, problems of the century were reflected in The Old Man. But some essential aspects of human existence were philosophically generalized and elucidated in this short story from the standpoint of triumphant humanism.

In the center of the story is the figure of the old fisherman Santiago. This is no ordinary old man. So he speaks about himself, and in the process of getting acquainted with the action, the reader has time to be convinced of the validity of this self-characterization. The image of the old man from the first lines acquires the features of elation, heroism. This is a real person, living in accordance with his own labor code of ethics, but as if doomed to failure. The problem of victory and defeat, perhaps the first one, naturally arises in the story: “The old man was fishing alone on his boat in the Gulf Stream. For eighty-four days now he has gone to sea and has not caught a single fish.” These are the first words of the piece. On the eighty-fifth day, the old man caught a huge marlin, but he could not deliver the prey home ... The sharks ate the fish. Looks like the old man has failed again. This impression is aggravated by the fact that the hero, who lost his prey, also had to endure suffering that would have broken a weaker person. Given the philosophical nature of the story, the theme of victory and defeat is of particular importance.

In the future, the victorious motive is invariably clearly opposed to the notes of despair, fatigue, defeat. It is not the balance of victory and defeat that is established, but the triumph of the victorious, optimistic principle. Exhausted by the fight with the marlin, Santiago mentally turns to him: “You are ruining me, fish,” the old man thought. “This, of course, is your right. Never in my life have I seen a creature more enormous, beautiful, calm and noble than you. Well, kill me. I don't care who kills who." But there is a difference between what a man at the limit of his powers thinks and what he does. But the old man, even in his thoughts, does not allow himself to despair. He, like once Robert Jordan, controls the work of his consciousness all the time. “Again your head is confused, old man,” the quotation just quoted continues directly, and on the same page it is said that Santiago, feeling that “life in him freezes”, acts and wins, and not only fish, but also his own weakness, fatigue and old age: "He gathered all his pain, and all the rest of his strength, and all his long-lost pride, and threw them into a duel with the torment" that the fish endured, and then she turned over on her side and quietly swam on side, almost reaching with the sword to the skin of the boat; she almost swam past, long, wide, silver, entwined with purple stripes, and it seemed that there would be no end to her.

The notes of desperation resound as the fish are attacked by sharks. It even seems that all the torments of the old man, all his perseverance and perseverance were in vain: “My affairs were going too well. It couldn't continue like this.

What appears to be a defeat on the concrete-event plane, on the moral plane, on the plane of philosophical generalization, turns out to be a victory. The whole story turns into a demonstration of the invincibility of a person even when external conditions are against bliss, when incredible difficulties and sufferings fall to his lot! Critics often compare The Old Man to Invincible. There, too, a person does not give up completely. But there is a fundamental difference between the two works. Manuel, for all his remarkable qualities, is the embodiment of that "code" that gives the loner the opportunity to stand against a hostile world. The courage of the matador is, as it were, directed at himself. With the old man it is different. Here it is time to turn to the question of what everything in the world is for, to the question of the meaning of life, that is, to one of the central problems of Hemingway's philosophical story.
This moment is especially important, since the problem of victory and defeat was repeatedly posed in the post-war foreign literature. Sartre, Camus and other writers representing different areas of existentialist philosophy doom their heroes to defeat, emphasizing the futility of human efforts. In American criticism there are attempts to declare an existentialist and Hemingway.

In the last quoted paragraph, the old man's thoughts do not accidentally merge with the thoughts of the author. The meaning of what is happening lies in the approval of the concept: life is a struggle. Only in such an uninterrupted struggle, which requires extreme exertion of physical and moral strength, does a person fully feel like a person, find happiness. Man's self-affirmation is in itself optimistic.

Other writings on this work

Ernest Hemingway's story was written in 1952, and since then has been a constant controversy over the interpretation of the main meaning of the work. The difficulty of interpretation lies in the fact that in the story the same attention is paid to the motives of suffering and loneliness of a person and the victory of the heroic principle in him.

But these topics are extremely important in the life of every person. The genius of the writer lies in the fact that he shows these topics as two sides of the same coin, and the key point of the story is that Hemingway allows the reader to choose which side to look at. Exactly this can be called the creative philosophy of Hemingway- inconsistency and duality of his works. And "The Old Man and the Sea" is called the writer's brightest and most amazing story.

Images of the story "The Old Man and the Sea"

First of all, it is worth paying attention to the main character in the story - the old man Santiago, who suffers constant setbacks throughout the story. The sail of his boat is old and incapacitated, and the hero himself is an old man exhausted by life with cheerful eyes. Through the eyes of a man who does not give up. This is the philosophical symbolism of the story. When the reader watches how the old man fights the fish, he sees in the actions and words of the protagonist fatalism of the eternal struggle of man. Santiago exerts all his strength and, despite everything, continues the duel, at the end of which he wins. It is at this moment that one of the main philosophical ideas of the work is revealed, which is that "a person can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated."

The strength of the old man's character

With the fight between old Santiago and the big fish, Hemingway draws our attention to the true nature of the human soul and the meaning of human life. The symbolic struggle of Santiago's personality continues when the sharks attack his fish. The hero does not despair, does not give up, and despite being tired and exhausted, he continues to fight, to defend what he has obtained with such great difficulty. Neither the wounds on his hands nor the broken knife prevent him from doing so. And at the moment when it becomes obvious that Santiago could not save the fish, a key symbol of the writer's philosophy is revealed. The hero didn't save the fish, but the hero didn't lose because - he fought to the last.

The exhausted and weakened hero still returns to the port, where the boy is waiting for him. Hemingway shows us the old man as a winner and reveals the strength of his character. After all, the image of Santiago has absorbed the features of a real hero, a man who never betrays himself and his principles. The writer's idea was to show the philosophical side of the principles of human existence, and he does this on the example of a single character and his attitude to life.

The meaning of human life in the story

There is no tragic ending in this story, the ending can be called completely open to the imagination of readers. This is the crushing power of Hemingway's philosophy, he gives us the opportunity to independently sum up the moral conclusion of the story. Santiago's personality is a symbol of the strength of the heroic principle in man and a symbol of real human victory, which does not depend on circumstances and events. Using this image, the writer reveals the meaning of human life, which can be called a struggle. The protagonist is indestructible, thanks to the strength of his character, spirit and life positions, it is these inner qualities that help him win, despite old age, loss of physical strength and adverse circumstances.

The emphatically realistic basis of the story requires an assessment of each small internal episode with indispensable consideration of the real psychological and physical state of the hero. Moreover, a single episode and even a single artistic detail must be considered in conjunction with other thematically related details and certainly in the general context of the narrative. This is the only way to find out, for example, whether the notes of defeat really sound in the story. Props, the realities of everyday life are also very important not only in terms of artistic authenticity and persuasiveness, but also in philosophical terms.

However, their philosophical meaning is subordinate in relation to the corresponding role of wildlife and images of actors. The desire to absolutize the characteristics of one or another reality of everyday life, for example, sails, to substitute a person in its place is far from always justified. The philosophical meaning of the scarcity of things and their characteristics in the story lies primarily in emphasizing that we are talking about the very foundations of human existence, given in the most naked form. The matter is complicated by the fact that many separate details often reflect not one theme, but several, and all of them, in essence, are interconnected.

In The Old Man and the Sea, we really do not find symbols, but a realistic story about the life of one person. But the way this person lives, how he thinks and feels, how he acts, makes you think about the principles of human existence, about the attitude to life. The small number of actors in the foreground, the paucity of material design does not lead to the destruction of social and other ties, does not create the impression of uniqueness. It's just that these connections find a special form of revelation and reflection in the story, they give the content the character of a generality. It is impossible to demand from a small philosophical work a demonstration of social ties, a social structure that is excluded by its very form. That is why it seems to us unjustified to mechanically compare The Old Man with Hemingway's great novels, and the position of critics who regret the narrowness of the story is very vulnerable "Hemingway wrote about a lot in his long creative life. Of course, not all of his themes and not all, even the most important, problems of the century were reflected in The Old Man. But some essential aspects of human existence were philosophically generalized and elucidated in this short story from the standpoint of triumphant humanism.

In the center of the story is the figure of the old fisherman Santiago. This is no ordinary old man. So he speaks about himself, and in the process of getting acquainted with the action, the reader has time to be convinced of the validity of this self-characterization. The image of the old man from the first lines acquires the features of elation, heroism. This is a real person, living in accordance with his own labor code of ethics, but as if doomed to failure. The problem of victory and defeat, perhaps the first one, naturally arises in the story: “The old man was fishing alone on his boat in the Gulf Stream. For eighty-four days now he has gone to sea and has not caught a single fish.” These are the first words of the piece. On the eighty-fifth day, the old man caught a huge marlin, but he could not deliver the prey home ... The sharks ate the fish. Looks like the old man has failed again. This impression is aggravated by the fact that the hero, who lost his prey, also had to endure suffering that would have broken a weaker person. Given the philosophical nature of the story, the theme of victory and defeat is of particular importance.

In the future, the victorious motive is invariably clearly opposed to the notes of despair, fatigue, defeat. It is not the balance of victory and defeat that is established, but the triumph of the victorious, optimistic principle. Exhausted by the fight with the marlin, Santiago mentally turns to him: “You are ruining me, fish,” the old man thought. “This, of course, is your right. Never in my life have I seen a creature more enormous, beautiful, calm and noble than you. Well, kill me. I don't care who kills who." But there is a difference between what a man at the limit of his powers thinks and what he does. But the old man, even in his thoughts, does not allow himself to despair. He, like once Robert Jordan, controls the work of his consciousness all the time. “Again your head is confused, old man,” the quotation just quoted continues directly, and on the same page it is said that Santiago, feeling that “life in him freezes”, acts and wins, and not only fish, but also his own weakness, fatigue and old age: "He gathered all his pain, and all the rest of his strength, and all his long-lost pride, and threw them into a duel with the torment" that the fish endured, and then she turned over on her side and quietly swam on side, almost reaching with the sword to the skin of the boat; she almost swam past, long, wide, silver, entwined with purple stripes, and it seemed that there would be no end to her.

The notes of desperation resound as the fish are attacked by sharks. It even seems that all the torments of the old man, all his perseverance and perseverance were in vain: “My affairs were going too well. It couldn't continue like this.

What appears to be a defeat on the concrete-event plane, on the moral plane, on the plane of philosophical generalization, turns out to be a victory. The whole story turns into a demonstration of the invincibility of a person even when external conditions are against bliss, when incredible difficulties and sufferings fall to his lot! Critics often compare The Old Man to Invincible. There, too, a person does not give up completely. But there is a fundamental difference between the two works. Manuel, for all his remarkable qualities, is the embodiment of that "code" that gives the loner the opportunity to stand against a hostile world. The courage of the matador is, as it were, directed at himself. With the old man it is different. Here it is time to turn to the question of what everything in the world is for, to the question of the meaning of life, that is, to one of the central problems of Hemingway's philosophical story.
This moment is especially important, since the problem of victory and defeat was repeatedly posed in the post-war foreign literature. Sartre, Camus and other writers representing different areas of existentialist philosophy doom their heroes to defeat, emphasizing the futility of human efforts. In American criticism there are attempts to declare an existentialist and Hemingway.

In the last quoted paragraph, the old man's thoughts do not accidentally merge with the thoughts of the author. The meaning of what is happening lies in the approval of the concept: life is a struggle. Only in such an uninterrupted struggle, which requires extreme exertion of physical and moral strength, does a person fully feel like a person, find happiness. Man's self-affirmation is in itself optimistic.