I recently began writing a piece for a short story contest, on the topic of "the human condition". For my piece, I chose the theme of the human cycle of insecurity, rejection, anger, and guilt. The prompt, however, made me think of another story of the human condition.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is an elderly fisherman who catches an enormous fish. It takes a great deal of time to fight and kill it, and as he tows it back to the shore (he cannot lift it into his boat) a shark eats most of the fish. This tragic man-vs-nature struggle is such a human story. Alone in a dangerous wilderness, we fight to survive. Sometimes we succeed. But if our story seems to have a happy ending, it is because it is not finished. Had Hemingway finished the story right when the old man triumphed over the great fish, it would have been a happy ending. Like life, however, Hemingway continued on until the triumph turned into a great defeat, and the old man returned to his simple life, weary and sad.
Hemingway explored the beauty of true competition in this story, and the crushing frustration of unfair defeat. The experienced fisherman and the 18-foot sword fish, both old and cunning and strong, fight a fair battle. But as it fights, the fish swims farther and farther from shore, bringing the old man with it. Thus, once it dies, the old man has days of sailing to get back. And in these days, a swarm of sharks find him and follow him and attack. They attack together, and at night, like the most dispicable cowards, but they are only animals, which adds to the indignity of the situation. In the end, Santiago returns to his worried village, where people fuss over the enormous skeleton still tied to his boat, and he goes to sleep and dreams of the same things he dreamed of before he left.
I love this approach to writing, because so many authors make it seems as though the characters have undergone some great change and life is linear, when actually people rarely change and life is a cyclical pattern. This story is a fanciful creation, yet strikingly true.
i had to smile when i saw you were reading this - it really is the sort of book teachers like to give to their pupils. i think i might have even done it then!
ReplyDeletei was intrigued by your conclusions - the strangely archaic notion that this was somehow a 'true competition', the anthropomorphism of the sharks as cowardly.
one could say the fisherman goes too far out, tries to land a fish too big for him to handle and as a result loses his catch, not taking into account an environment he should be all too familar with.
I agree - the fisherman was pushing his limits, which he should have known and respected. In some ways though, this makes it an even more dramatic competition: he's fighting his own physical and mental limitations as well as the fish itself. Just like you could say that Santiago was in over his head, you could have said that it was foolish to ever race a horse with the physical limitations of Seabiscuit, or for 13 small colonies to challenge a great empire (Great Britain). There are so many examples of under-dogs winning against all odds, and we applaud their courage, but when they fail, we say they're foolish.
ReplyDeleteI think its important to look at Santiago's actions the way one must study history: consider what the situation would look life if we didn't know the outcome. He was a man fighting an uphill battle, because the prize seemed worth it. On the other hand, of course, you could say sometimes underdogs get lucky, but they're all stupid for taking risks that go against all odds.
As for the sharks, I think that they are meant to represent the cowards who come in the dark, and only when they outnumber their enemies. We all know they exist, but sometime, like Santiago, we hope we can escape them. They remind me a little bit of a lynch mob in the Old South - a black person who spoke out under certain circumstances ran the risk of getting lynched. Just because something can be expected or predicted, though, does not mean it's not a tragedy. In this manner of thinking, Santiago could have predicted the sharks' interference, and probably did, but that doesn't mean he should have a) avoided the conflict altogether b) accepted them when they came for the fish, or c) not mourned the loss caused by their savage actions. He did something brave, took a calculated risk, putting every fiber of his being into a fight that seemed impossible to win, which makes his struggle valiant, in my opinion, not stupid.
i still don't like the notion of sharks as cowards and i've never bought into this hemingwayesque thing that killing animals is some sort of watershed experience.
ReplyDeletea big sailfish is a beautiful thing. i don't think there's anything noteworthy in killing one. likewise for sharks. they're not cowardly, they're sharks, it's what they do. at the most basic level the fisherman either forgets or ignores this so all his efforts are fruitless.
for me, the old man and the sea, is hemingway's stab at a moby dick type tale with all the bravado and none of the subtlety. even when i was young i was rooting for the fish! lol
with any luck they're not giving you moby dick at school. i didn't read it for years and years but when i finally did i realised what all the fuss was about!
I mostly agree regarding the fish, in a way, since it was fighting for its life and the old man wasn't, at least not in a direct sense.
ReplyDeletethe sharks i think are a valuable metaphor, but if we're talking realistically, not figuratively, i agree that they're animals and can only be expected to fend for themselves.
in general, hemingway is all about bravado, and while he's pretty good at complex, he's not really what i would consider a subtle writer. so i agree with your assesment, but i like his directness and drama, because I think they're what he's aiming for, and the simple yet dramatic style makes a great story.
i haven't read moby dick but i'm sure i will someday! based on what i know though, i think you're right: hemingway's using the archetypal man-vs-big-fish storyline that moby dick probably originated.