Ernest Hemingway

Literary Analysis: The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway~{!/~}s novella, ~{!0~}The Old Man and the Sea~{!1~} has one of the most simplistic plot structures of the literary world. But does this fact eliminate its eligibility as a piece of good literature? Quite the contrary, this novella is one of the most respected literary pieces ever written. This novel is written in a simple style which has a straightforward plot, very distinct descriptions, and few but delineated characters. This style actually enhances the reader~{!/~}s understanding of the story in terms of the setting, characterization, and parts of plot structure.

A good example of how this style of writing can benefit the reader is the limited setting of the piece. A limited setting is a setting that does not
In this case, the plot structure is again very well delineated and the reader is able to identify the different parts of plot structure with certain ease. This aspect of a simple plot structure can further enhance the simplicity of this novella. The idea here is that distinguishable sections of plot structure, such as the exposition and climax, differ as much as possible, once again eliminating confusion. For example, in this novel, the exposition is the day before his voyage, the rising action is the days leading up to his catch, the climax, the falling action is his voyage home and the shark attacks and finally, the resolution would be the day after he came back. When a section of the plot is over, the reader is brought into the next section with a quick transition. For example, Hemingway narrates, "The old man looked at the fish constantly to make sure it was true. It was an hour before the first shark hit him. (99)" This sentence quickly transitions from the climax to the start of the falling action. Again, this is another great aspect of Hemingway's simplistic