Skip to main content

The Old Man and the Sea



Kill or be killed is one of the fundamental natural laws among animals. Life is tough in such a world and calls for certain qualities such as determination and endurance. Ernest Hemingway’s short novel, The Old Man and the Sea, is a tribute to determination and endurance.

Santiago is an aged fisherman. Of late he is beset with misfortune. Eighty-four days have gone by since he caught his last fish. The people around him are now convinced that he is hopelessly down on his luck so much so that even the boy Manolin, Santiago’s apprentice, is asked to stay away from the old man. Manolin continues to do some chores for Santiago but stops accompanying him to the sea.

On the 85th day, Santiago sails beyond the charted waters and hooks a huge marlin in the deep sea. The fish is too huge for him to manage and so he lets it drag the boat initially. Both Santiago and the fish know that they have to kill or be killed. Who will kill whom is the only question that remains.

On the third day the fish tires. Santiago has been surviving on raw fish for food. And he is determined to survive. He is too proud to give up. He has to prove that he is still a man. A “man can be destroyed but not defeated,” he tells himself. The fish can kill him or else he will kill the fish: there is no other option.

The fish is not his enemy, however. On the contrary, Santiago calls the fish his brother. He tells the fish, “Because I love you, I have to kill you.” The marlin is a worthy enemy who is as strong, determined and proud as Santiago. The fish has given Santiago a good fight, a noble fight, a worthy fight. But now the fish is tired and Santiago will kill him. The fish will be taken ashore and people will admire it before eating it. The people who will eat it are unworthy of its greatness, Santiago knows. But that can’t be helped. That is how the world is.

Finally Santiago kills the fish with his harpoon and ties it to the boat. It is too big to be dragged into the boat. So it has to be dragged along. But the sharks smell it.

Santiago reaches home on the fifth day morning and goes to sleep for a while. When Manolin wakes him up there is a crowd outside his hut admiring his prowess. However, by the side of his boat, there is nothing but the marlin’s skeleton left. The sharks had feasted on its flesh all along.

Santiago is not disappointed, however. He has proved something. He has proved that “a man can be destroyed but not defeated”. Santiago defeated the marlin and the sharks defeated Santiago. But the old man has a secret delight: he has challenged destiny. “I went too far,” he tells himself. He went too far into the ocean challenging one of nature’s laws. Nature is not kind. If you challenge nature, it will retaliate. However, heroism lies in the challenge and in the way you face the consequences. Santiago emerges as a hero. The people who mocked him till yesterday now view him with veneration.

Santiago goes back to sleep. And he dreams of lions at play. He has been a lion. That is what matters in the end. Never mind the skeleton that mocks him from the side of his boat.


PS. This is part of a series being written for the #BlogchatterA2Z Challenge. The previous parts are:
14. No Exit
Tomorrow: The Plague


Comments

  1. It is not even a full length novel. But it is so profound everyone should read it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Old Man and the Sea is such a celebration of the determined spirit of man.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have read it and I must say I finished in in one go. Couldn't afford to lose a moment in between. Really Engrossing. I loved his monologues while Santiago was in water. A lovely novel. Your review just once again took me there...Tina

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anyone who loves the spirit of hope and endurance will be engrossed by Santiago.

      Delete
  4. Determination can take a man places. Seems like an inspiring read. Love Hemingway's quote.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It does inspire. Hemingway is a Nobel laureate too.

      Delete
  5. Very intense and what a determination the man portrays. Yes, it is the fighting spirit that matters in the end! Very well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a work that Hemingway perfected by rewriting many times.

      Delete
    2. Oh, that's an interesting input. Thanks for sharing.

      Delete
  6. Read this book for the prompt “A book with no chapters / unusual chapter headings / unconventionally numbered chapters”. This one has no chapters. A simple yet profound story that makes you reflect and shares some amazing life lessons like persisting despite failures, accepting challenges, never give up...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's another interesting fact about this:no chapter division.

      Delete
  7. Always find it motivating, whenever I read.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow, Sir I loved to read the story. You have penned it so well that I could visualize everything. Nice one.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The determination and the will, Santiago fought.. that's so motivational.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have read The Humming Bird... But not this... This book seems quite inspiring... And you have described it very beautifully

    ReplyDelete
  11. This book is a classic. I loved the inspiring lines and Santiago's character.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Santiago will continue to inspire people for years to come.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...