The second quarter of The Old Man and the Sea consisted of a lot of rising action and development of Santiago's character. The most recent quarter of the book that I have read, diverts from that structure and there begins to be a lot more action. I enjoyed reading this part of the book, it kept me turning the pages to find out if the old man catches the fish. However, I am a bit disappointed because my prediction that he would not catch the fish was wrong. I thought that this book would be a more tragic story, but it turns out that is not the case.
This week, I’m going to focus on Hemingway's style in The Old Man and the Sea because there is quite a lot to dig into. The book is considered a novella -- it is only 127 pages and there are no chapters. This makes it difficult to find pausing places. I have been reading a quarter of the book every week but often that has left me in the middle of intense action. How might some old man catching a fish be so intense, you might ask? Well, when the author has been building up to this eventual triumph for 97 whole pages, it is relieving to find out the the man catches the fish.
The point of view is third-person omniscient, but we are pretty much excluded from the boy's thoughts and feelings once the old man goes out to sea. There are however many insights into Santiago’s thoughts and feelings because the narrator will say something like, “I want to see him, he thought, and to touch and feel him.” This is the old man talking about his prized fish he is hunting. The narrator does not solely describe the plot.
Diving into syntax, Hemingway uses very short, to-the-point, sentences throughout most of the box. When Santiago is actively slaughtering the marlin, the sentences become considerably longer. To me, this symbolizes and emphasizes the greater idea of perseverance that has been developed throughout the book. This is where the religious symbolism comes into play.
When Jesus was crucified he had many wounds on his hands from his nailing to the cross. The old man too has deep cuts in his hands and back from holding his fishing line. The old man is kind of like Jesus in the sense that he is putting his best effort into something he believes he can do. Jesus believed in the word of god, and the old man believes he will eventually catch a massive fish.
Some motifs I have picked up throughout the book are baseball and hearts, I have been discussing them in my previous posts. I’ll talk more about hearts this time since I talked a lot about Joe DiMaggio last week. When Santiago has finally slain the marlin, “the sea was discolouring with the red of the blood of [the marlin’s] heart.” This represents the power of strength and perseverance as well. If you recall that earlier in the book, Santiago said he ate the turtle’s heart for strength, this quote speaks to the power of the heart. In this book the sea seems like a powerful figure -- it has not allowed Santiago to catch a fish in eighty-four days. Now this marlin heart has quickly altered its power. Possibly Hemingway is trying to say that with “heart,” even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for my post on the remainder of the book!
Larsen, good discussion of the impact of syntax and sentence structure. It would be nice to see some examples of the differences in sentence structure in those sections.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when we read "The Big Two-Hearted River" sophomore year? That story also relates to fishing and an individual's quest, at least to a degree. Do you think the heart in each story might be similar?