Figurative Language In The Old Man And The Sea By Hemingway

Many authors use figurative language is different ways and with different word usage, but how and why do authors use figurative language? What is the proper way to use them, when should they be used, and what particularly is the difference of books that use it, and the ones that do not as fairly have any? In “The Old Man And The Sea” written by Ernest Hemingway, many specific types of figurative language are used throughout the book such as alliteration, similes, and personification, and all of them generally are used to describe the scene, and how things are going on throughout the days that he had been fishing in the sea. Alliteration is used throughout the book when the old man; Santiago expresses his feelings about the fish, “But
“Fish," he said, "I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” “Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead.” He is talking to the fish in both quotes as if the fish could actually understand what he was telling it. "I am as clear as the stars that are my brothers. Still I must sleep. They sleep and the moon and the sun sleep and even the ocean sleeps sometimes on certain days when there is no current and a flat calm." The moon and the sun were given that characteristic of sleep, and that they are calm when there is nothing going on such as humans do. “Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel.” This quote gives the sea a human characteristic which is cruelty that it can be kind to fisherman by providing them with fish, yet at the same time it can be deadly to them with the violent waves it makes. “Don’t be shy, fish. Eat them.” The fish is given a human trait which is shyness. The old man is speaking to the fish as if it could understand and respond to what he’s telling it to do, that creates a feeling of both of them; the old man and the fish can understand each other. “The moon runs away... Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him… There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. " The moon is given the trait of movement, and it makes it sound as if it was a living object. “The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with gray and blue hills behind it…” All of these excerpts from the book show many ways in how objects or animals can be given human characteristics, without making the words sound