The old man and the sea are the main characters of the list. The history of the creation of the story is the parable “The Old Man and the Sea. Why is the old man chosen as the main character?
In 1951, Hemingway finished the story "The Old Man and the Sea", which became a masterpiece of world literature. “In The Old Man and the Sea,” Hemingway noted, “I tried to create a real old man, a real boy, a real sea, a real fish, and real sharks.”
The main problem of this work, as well as the conflict, are connected with the main character - Santiago, who has not had a catch for a long time, and who has already been called a "loser". What is a person ready to do for the sake of his goal, and what reserves are opened up thanks to a dream and inspiration?
So, Santiago goes to the open sea to prove to everyone, and first of all to himself, that he is capable of doing the work to which he devoted his whole life. The sea plays a specific role in the story, it is a metaphor for our world, in which a lonely person suffers and struggles, trying to fulfill his destiny. Also, the sea is a symbol of disaster, a person in it is between life and death.
At first, the old man catches small fish, after a while he felt that something huge had pecked, pulling the boat forward. It was a huge swordfish that Santiago could not handle alone. For many hours the fisherman struggles with the fish: his hands are covered in blood, and the wayward catch pulls him further and further, and then he turns to God. Although up to this point Santiago did not consider himself a believer, he naively and sincerely prays to heaven for the death of the fish. But if he knew how much trouble this request would bring him. An old man kills a sea creature with a harpoon, and a trail of blood trails behind it, onto which sharks flock. With such opponents, the old man is not ready to fight and cannot do anything.
In the end, the old man returns to his native bay, exhausted, but not broken. He returned with the remains of a huge fish (a spine and a giant tail), and the next morning the fishermen will look at them with amazement.
This is not just a story, Hemingway wanted to create a philosophical story-parable, and, of course, there are no details in it that do not make sense. For example, a sail is a symbol of fortune, with the energy of air, speaking of its impermanence. The old man himself is a symbol of wisdom. Having made Santiago an old man, Hemingway already knowingly told us that all his actions in the story are righteous and correct. And the name Santiago (sant saint), (yago-ego), is translated as "holy man". In a dream, the old man dreams of Africa, lions. Lions symbolize happiness and strength. Santiago is happy and hardened in the fight for existence, which keeps people in shape for centuries.
According to another interpretation, main character- the personification of the strong spirit of the boy - a true friend of Santiago. They are always together, the young fisherman has learned a lot from the patron and does not want to give it up, despite any persuasion of the elders, who have lost faith in the old man's abilities. If we take into account that a person who goes to sea hardly eats, manages ascetically with a small amount of goods and conveniences, communicates with almost no one and speaks only with a partner, then one might think that he is completely immaterial. He is the protagonist of the metaphor of life, of fishing, which he went alone, as any of us goes to life path one. A real fisherman of his age could not, almost without eating even on land, repeat such a voyage, but Santiago is a human spirit, he, according to Hemingway, is capable of anything. It is he who pushes the limp body to the feat of activity. Most likely, the spiritual essence of the boy is depicted, in which no one still believes, since he did not catch a single large fish. However, he shows willpower (in the form of Santiago) and embarks on a desperate adventure, sailing too far from the coast. As a result, the sharks gnawed even the skeleton of a rich catch, but the young miner gained respect in the village. Everyone around appreciated his perseverance and determination.
Speaking of symbols, one should not forget what Hemingway himself said about them: “Obviously, there are symbols, since critics do nothing but find them. I'm sorry, but I hate talking about them and don't like being asked about them. It's hard enough to write books and stories without any explanation. Besides, it means taking bread from the experts... Read what I write and look for nothing but your own pleasure. And if you need anything else - find it, it will be your contribution to what you read.
Indeed, it would look ridiculous if Ernest himself began to decipher these symbols, or, even worse, if he wrote, starting from them. He composed a story about real life, such a story can be transferred to any historical era, to any person who achieves what he wants. And since in life often everything is not just like that, and as the years pass, we find symbols in own life, then in a work of art they are even more so.
The image of the main character is simple. This is an old man who lives in a Cuban village near Havana. All his life he earns money with his skill in catching fish. The main thing is that he is happy, he does not need wealth, Santiago has enough of the sea and his favorite business. This is probably what a "holy man" looks like in Hemingway's eyes. The one who has found himself and understands that it is not money that makes you happy, but self-realization.
The main feature of Hemingway's style is truthfulness. He himself spoke of it this way: “If a writer knows well what he writes about, he can miss a lot of what he knows, and if he writes truthfully, the reader will feel everything that is missing as much as if the writer had said about this. The greatness of the movement of the iceberg is that it rises only one-eighth above the surface of the water. The technique that the author used in the story is known in the literature as the “iceberg principle”. It is based on the great role of subtext and symbols. At the same time, the language is defiantly dry, restrained, not replete with means. artistic expressiveness. The work is short, with apparent simplicity and unpretentiousness of the plot. In dialogues about everyday trifles, the essence of the characters is revealed, but none of them says a word about it: the reader makes all discoveries at the level of intellectual intuition.
Thus, Hemingway's style is distinguished by the accuracy and conciseness of the language, the cold calmness in the descriptions of tragic and extreme situations, the ultimate concreteness of artistic details, and the most important ability to omit the optional. This manner is also called “style through teeth”: the meaning goes into details, there is understatement, the text is stingy and sometimes rude, the dialogues are exceptionally natural. Telegraphic writing, which Hemingway mastered while working as a reporter, is expressed in the conscious repetition of words and peculiar punctuation (short sentences). The author skips reasoning, descriptions, landscapes to make the speech clearer and more specific.
This story is an example for every person of any age, gender, physical condition, nationality, worldview. The old man did not bring a whole fish, and this suggests that a person’s victory should not be material, the main thing is victory over oneself, and everyone, having a goal, can accomplish a feat, like old Santiago.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!The writing
At the lesson of foreign literature, we studied the work of E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea." Literary critics define the genre of this work as a story-parable, i.e. a work that tells about the fate and certain events of the hero's life, but this story has an allegorical character, deep moral and philosophical content. The story is closely connected with all the previous works of the writer and looks like the pinnacle of his thoughts about the meaning of life. The story can be told in a few sentences. There lived a lonely old fisherman. AT recent times fishing fate, like people, left him, but the old man did not give up. He goes out to sea again and again, and in the end he is happy: a huge fish is caught on the bait, the struggle between the old man and the fish lasts for several days, and the man wins, and the gluttonous sharks attack the fisherman's prey and destroy it. When the old man's boat comes ashore, only the skeleton remains of the beautiful fish. The exhausted old man returns to his poor hut.
However, the content of the story is much broader and richer. Hemingway likened his works to an iceberg, which is only a small part visible from the water, and the rest is hidden in the ocean space. A literary text is that part of the iceberg that is visible on the surface, and the reader can only guess what the author left unsaid, left it for the reader to interpret. Therefore, the story has a deep symbolic content.
The title of the work evokes certain associations, hints at the main problems: man and nature, mortal and eternal, ugly and beautiful, etc. The union "and" ("The Old Man and the Sea") unites and at the same time opposes these concepts. The characters and events of the story concretize these associations, deepen and sharpen the problems stated in the title. The old man symbolizes human experience and at the same time its limitations. Next to the old fisherman, the author depicts a little boy who is learning and learning from the old man. And when the old fisherman is not happy, the parents forbid the boy to go to sea with him. In a fight with a fish, the old man really needs help, and he regrets that there is no boy nearby, and understands that this is natural. Old age, he thinks, should not be lonely, and this is inevitable.
The theme of human loneliness is revealed by the author in the symbolic paintings of a fragile boat against the backdrop of a boundless ocean. The ocean symbolizes eternity and irresistible natural force. Hemingway is sure that a person can be destroyed, but not defeated. The old man brought his ability to resist nature, he withstood the hardest test in his life, because, despite his loneliness, he thought about people (memories of the boy, their conversations about an outstanding baseball player, about sports news support him at a moment when his strength almost left).
At the end of the story, Hemingway also touches on the topic of misunderstanding between people. He depicts a group of tourists who are amazed only by the size of the skeleton of the fish and do not understand at all the tragedy of the old man, about which one of the heroes is trying to tell them. The symbolism of the story is complex, and each reader perceives this work according to his experience.
Other writings on this work
Man and nature (based on the novel by E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea") Man and nature (based on the story by E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea") (First version) Old man Santiago defeated or victorious "The Old Man and the Sea" - a book about a man who does not give up Analysis of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" The main theme of Hemingway's novel "The Old Man and the Sea" Problems and genre features of E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea" A hymn to man (based on the novel by E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea") Courageous hero of a courageous writer (based on Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea") "Man was not created to suffer defeat" (According to E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea") The plot and content of the story of the parable "The Old Man and the Sea" The world was excited by the magnificent story "The Old Man and the Sea" Features of Hemingway's styleIllustration by Henry Seabright
Old Santiago lives in a small fishing village in Cuba and fishes all by himself. The last time he spent 84 days at sea, he did not catch anything. Previously, the boy Manolin, who helped the old man a lot, fished with him, but the boy's parents decided that Santiago was unlucky, and ordered his son to go to sea on another boat.
The old man taught Manolin how to fish, and the boy loves Santiago and wants to help him. He buys him sardines for bait, brings food to his hut. The old man had long since come to terms with his poverty.
He was too simple-hearted to think about when humility came to him. But he knew that humility came without bringing shame or loss of human dignity.
They talk to the boy about fishing and famous baseball players. At night, the old man dreams of the Africa of his youth, and "the lions coming ashore."
The next day, early in the morning, the old man goes fishing. The boy helps him pull down the sail, prepare the boat. The old man says that this time he "believes in luck".
One by one, fishing boats leave the shore and go to sea. The old man loves the sea, he thinks of it with tenderness, like a woman. Having put the bait on the hooks, Santiago slowly swims with the flow, mentally communicating with birds and fish. Accustomed to loneliness, the old man talks aloud to himself.
Before, left alone, he sang; he sometimes sang at night, when he was on watch, when he went on big sailboats or hunted turtles.
The old man knows different inhabitants of the ocean and treats them very tenderly.
First, Santiago catches a small tuna. He hopes that there is a big fish walking around the school of tuna, who will like his sardines. Soon the old man notices a slight tremor of a flexible green rod, which replaces his fishing rod. The fishing line goes down, and the old man feels the enormous weight of the pecking fish.
The old man tries to pull up a thick fishing line, but he fails - a large and strong fish pulls a light boat behind him. The old man regrets that the boy is not with him - he could take the bait from other rods while Santiago fights with the fish.
It takes about four hours. Evening is coming. The old man's hands are cut, he throws the fishing line on his back and puts a bag under it. Now Santiago can lean against the side of the boat and get some rest.
It is impossible for a person to remain alone in old age ... However, this is inevitable.
Night. The fish pulls the boat farther from the shore. The old man is tired, but the thought of the fish does not leave him for a second. Sometimes he feels sorry for her - the fish, so big, strong and old, must die so that he can live on. Santiago is talking to the fish: "I will not part with you until I die."
The old man's strength is running out, and the fish is not going to get tired. At dawn, Santiago eats tuna - he has no other food. The old man's left hand cramps. The old man hopes that the fish will surface, and then he can kill it with a harpoon. Finally, the forest goes up, and fish are shown on the surface. She burns in the sun, her head and back are dark purple, and instead of a nose she has a sword as long as a baseball bat. It is two feet longer than the boat.
Alone, on the high seas, he was firmly attached to a fish as big as he had ever seen, never even heard of.
Having appeared on the surface, the fish again goes into the depths, pulling the boat along with it, and the old man gathers strength to keep it. Not believing in God, he reads "Our Father".
Another day passes. To distract himself, the old man reminisces about baseball games. He remembers how once in a Casablanca tavern he measured his strength with a mighty black man, the strongest man in the port, how they sat at the table for a whole day, not giving up, and how he finally prevailed. He participated in such fights more than once, won, but then gave up this business, deciding that he needed his right hand for fishing.
The battle with the fish continues. Santiago holds the forest with his right hand, knowing that when his strength runs out, he will be replaced by his left, the cramp in which has long since passed. A mackerel comes across a small fishing rod. The old man reinforces his strength with it, although this fish is completely tasteless. He feels sorry for the big fish, which has nothing to eat, but the determination to kill it does not decrease from this.
It's good that we don't have to kill the sun, moon and stars. It is enough that we extort food from the sea and kill our brothers.
At night, the fish comes to the surface and begins to walk in circles, then approaches the boat, then moves away from it. This is a sign that the fish is tired. The old man is preparing a harpoon to finish off the fish. But she steps aside. From fatigue, thoughts are confused in the old man’s head, and black spots dance before his eyes. Santiago gathers the last of his strength and plunges the harpoon into the side of the fish.
And then the fish came to life, although it already carried death in itself, - it rose high above the water, as if showing off its enormous length and width, all its beauty and power.
Overcoming nausea and weakness, the old man ties the fish to the side of the boat and turns towards the shore. The direction of the wind tells him which way to swim to get home.
An hour passes before the first shark is shown, having come to the smell of blood. She approaches the stern and begins to tear the fish with her teeth. The old man hits her with a harpoon in the most vulnerable spot on the skull. She sinks to the bottom, taking with her a harpoon, part of the rope and a huge piece of fish.
Santiago kills two more sharks with a knife tied to an oar. These sharks take at least a quarter of the fish with them. On the fourth shark, the knife breaks, and the old man takes out a strong club.
He knew that every shark push against the boat meant a piece of torn meat and that the fish now left a trail in the sea as wide as a highway and accessible to all sharks in the world.
The next group of sharks attacks the boat before sunset. The old man drives them away with club blows on the heads, but at night they return. Santiago fights the predators first with a club, then with a sharp fragment of the tiller. Finally, the sharks swim away: they have nothing else to eat.
The old man enters the bay at his hut in the dead of night. Taking off the mast and tying the sail, he wanders to the house, feeling incredibly tired. For a moment, the old man turns around and sees behind the stern of his boat a huge tail of a fish and a reflection of a white ridge.
A boy comes to the old man's hut. Santiago is sleeping. The boy cries when he sees his wounded palms. He brings coffee to the old man, reassures him and assures him that from now on they will fish together, because he still has a lot to learn. He believes that he will bring good luck to the old man.
In the morning, fishermen look with amazement at the remains of a giant fish. Wealthy tourists come to the shore. They are surprised to notice a long white spine with a huge tail. The waiter tries to tell them what happened, but they do not understand anything - they are too far from this life.
And the old man is sleeping at this time, and he dreams of lions.
Plot
For 84 days, old Cuban fisherman Santiago goes out to sea and can't catch anything. Even his little friend Manolin almost stopped helping him, although they are still friends and often talk about this and that. On the 85th day, the old man goes to sea, as usual, on his sailboat, and luck smiles at him - a marlin about 5.5 meters long comes across the hook. The old man regrets that there is no boy with him, it is not easy to cope alone. Within a few days, a real battle takes place between the fish and the person. The old man was able to handle with his bare hands a fish that was longer than his boat and armed with a sword. But the marlin takes the boat far into the sea, it is not enough to catch a fish - you still have to swim to the shore with it. On the blood from the wounds of the fish, sharks gather to the old man's boat and devour the fish. The old man enters into a fight with them, but here the forces are not equal. While he swam to the shore, only a skeleton remained of the fish.
Characters
- Santiago - old fisherman
- Manolin - the boy next door
Screen adaptations
- - "The Old Man and the Sea" - a film by John Sturges
- - "The Old Man and the Sea" - cartoon by Alexander Petrov
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See what "The Old Man and the Sea (story)" is in other dictionaries:
The Old Man And The Sea Genre: Novel
The Old Man and the Sea: The Old Man and the Sea story by Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea film by John Sturges based on the story by Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea cartoon by Alexander Petrov based on the story by Hemingway ... Wikipedia
This term has other meanings, see The Old Man and the Sea (meanings). The Old Man and the Sea The Old Man and the Sea ... Wikipedia
TALE, a prose genre of unstable volume (mainly in the middle between a novel and a short story), gravitating towards a chronicle plot that reproduces the natural course of life. The plot devoid of intrigue is centered around the protagonist, ... ... Modern Encyclopedia
A prose genre of unstable volume (mainly an average between a novel and a short story), gravitating towards a chronicle plot that reproduces the natural course of life. The plot devoid of intrigue is centered around the protagonist, personality and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
AND; pl. genus. her; and. 1. A narrative work with a plot less complex than a novel, and usually smaller in length. Documentary item. Collection of stories. Stories of writers of the beginning of the century. P. about unhappy love. Household, historical, military item 2 ... encyclopedic Dictionary
This term has other meanings, see Scarlet sails. Scarlet Sails Genre: extravaganza
The sail of the lone Battleship "Prince Potemkin Tauride" turns white Genre: story Author ... Wikipedia
"Hemingway" redirects here; see also other meanings. Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway ... Wikipedia
Years in the literature of the XX century. 1952 in Literature. 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 ... Wikipedia
Books
- The Old Man and the Sea. Islands and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway. "The Old Man and the Sea" . The story is dedicated to "tragic stoicism": in the face of the cruelty of the world, a person, even losing, must maintain courage and dignity. "Islands and the sea". Sincere and…
"The Old Man and the Sea"(The Old Man And The Sea) is a 1952 short story by Ernest Hemingway. Tells the story of old man Santiago, a Cuban fisherman, and his struggle with a giant fish that became the biggest prey of his life.
History of creation
The idea of this work matured in Hemingway for many years. Back in 1936, in the essay "On Blue Water" for Esquire magazine, he described a similar episode that happened to a Cuban fisherman.
The story itself was published in September 1952 in Life magazine. Already after the publication of the story, Hemingway revealed his creative idea in one interview. He said that the book "The Old Man and the Sea" could have more than a thousand pages, every villager could find his place in this book, all the ways in which they earn a living, how they are born, study, raise children. It's all well done by other writers. In literature, you are limited by what has been satisfactorily done before. So I should try to find out something else. First, I have tried to omit everything unnecessary in order to convey my experience to the readers in such a way that after reading it becomes part of their experience and seems to have really happened. This is very difficult to achieve and I have worked very hard on it. In any case, in short, this time I was incredibly lucky, and I was able to convey the experience in full, and at the same time such an experience that no one has ever conveyed. In 1953, Ernest Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize for his work, in 1954 - the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Plot
For 84 days, old Cuban fisherman Santiago goes out to sea and can't catch anything. And only his little friend Manolin continues to help him, although his father forbids him to go fishing with old Santiago. They are still friends and often talk about this and that. On the 85th day, the old man goes to sea, as usual, on his sailing boat, and luck smiles at him - a marlin about 5.5 meters long comes across the hook. The old man regrets that there is no boy with him, it is not easy to cope alone. Within a few days, a real battle takes place between the fish and the person. The old man was able to handle with his bare hands a fish that was longer than his boat and armed with a sword. But the marlin takes the boat far into the sea, it is not enough to catch a fish - you still have to swim to the shore with it. On the blood from the wounds of the fish, sharks gather to the old man's boat and devour the fish. The old man enters into a fight with them, but here the forces are not equal. When he reaches the shore, the fish is left with only a skeleton, a head and a sword, which Santiago gives the boy as a keepsake.
