Symbolism in the Old Man and the Sea

Symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea
In The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism to add dimension to his story. Hemingway once said, “All the things that are in it do not show, but only are with you after you have read it” (Young). He created The Old Man and the Sea with hopes that readers would understand what the story symbolizes. Primarily, Hemingway uses symbolism to comment on the journey of life and facing defeats. In addition, Hemingway creates a parallel between his own life, and the life of Santiago. Finally, the plot of the novel symbolizes many different Christian themes, including Santiago being a Christ figure. Ernest Hemingway uses symbolism to define his characters in The Old Man and the Sea.
The Old Man and the Sea symbolizes life and the struggles that one endures during their lifetime. In his essay, “The Old Man and the Sea: Vision/Revision,” Philip Young comments on the struggles in The Old Man and the Sea:
If we ask ourselves what The Old Man and the sea is “about” on a public and figurative level, we can only answer “life,” which is the finest and most ambitious thing for a parable to be about. Hemingway has written about life: a struggle against the impossible odds of unconquerable natural forces in which—given such a fact as that of death—a man can only lose, but which he can dominate in such a way that his loss has dignity, itself the victory. (Young 2) In this story, Santiago represents the true and noble hero. Santiago has the characteristics of a noble hero. These characteristics are courage, humility, and knowledge. Santiago shows courage as he continues to fight for the fish, even through issues with his crippled hand, and as sharks attack the fish. He shows humility as he continues to fish even after more than eighty days of unsuccessful fishing. He has extreme knowledge and expertise in the craft of fishing. The change of events from Santiago having bad luck fishing and then suddenly catching the huge marlin can be expressed through the idea that Santiago deserves only to catch the greatest fish after his religious devotion to his trade. He is only able to catch a fish that is his equal. Hemingway relates the nobility of Santiago to the stars of the sky as Santiago states, “ I am as clear as the stars that are my brothers!” (Hemingway 77). After Santiago captures the fish he is akin to the stars, which he believes are the most majestic of all creatures. Santiago is again compared to a creature when he comments about the loggerhead turtles whose hearts continue to beat after they have been butchered by saying, “I have such a heart too and my feet and hands are like theirs” (Hemingway). Santiago is compared to the marlin, mako shark, and turtle. All these creatures are depicted in the story as showing intense life at the moment of their death (Jobes). The marlin shows the enormity of his life as he springs out of the water before dying. The mako shark bites the marlin after its death and takes nearly forty pounds of the fish’s meat before Santiago kills it with his harpoon. The fish takes both Santiago’s harpoon and rope as it dies and sinks into the sea. The turtle’s heart continues beating hours after it is killed. Santiago shows intense life as he fights off the sharks and tries to save his fish even as his body is deteriorating and he is reaching the end of the struggle. Through this, Santiago becomes a symbol of victory in the face of defeat. He is a victor because he does not lose himself against temptation and hardship. The marlin and Santiago symbolize each other. The fish possesses the same virtues that Santiago is commended to have. When Santiago tells the marlin, “Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come and kill me. I do not care who kills who” (Hemingway 92), he has realized the nobility of the fish. Both endure through the trials of Santiago catching the fish, and are nearly destroyed by the close of the story. After killing the fish, Santiago says, “I think I felt his heart” (Hemingway 95). He and the creature have become one during the three day course. He has finally found an equal opponent, and from the moment that the fish is caught on the line, one of the pair is destined to lose everything. For both it is a struggle against death. As the story continues, instead of only calling the marlin a fish, in Santiago’s mind it becomes “brother.” Santiago and the fish parallel each other in their conditions as they return to the village. The fish has been torn apart by sharks and only his skeleton remains that shows the former grandness of the marlin. Santiago has not eaten and has suffered hugely through the loss of his greatest prize, the fish. He is exhausted and has lost most of his movement in his left hand. By the end of the novel, it is apparent that Santiago and the fish are both the hunter and the hunted. Both have sustained loss directly from the other. The former nobility of both characters is only a lost memory. At this point in his life Santiago only dreams of the lions that he saw on the coast of Africa during his youth. These lions continuously reappear throughout the story as a symbol of Santiago’s youth. A pattern is made from the moments that Santiago imagines the lions (Young). He chooses to use the lions as a form of escape from the torment of his old age. In the darkest moments of the nights when Santiago must sleep, he combats the darkness with visions of the bright white lions playing on the beach. As he grows more tired in his battle against the marlin, he summons the vision of the lions. The lions become a form of escape from his old age and weariness.
In addition to viewing the lion as remembrance of his youth, Santiago uses the character Manolin as a way to find strength and to conjure the feelings of his youth. Manolin symbolizes Santiago’s lost youth. The conversation between Manolin and Santiago exhibits the difference, but also the existing affection, between old age and youth. The two represent the beginning and ending of life. Santiago feels the need to pass his knowledge of fishing and life on to Manolin. Santiago is the teacher and Manolin is the pupil. Santiago longs for Manolin while he battles the marlin, but also is longing for his youth. He repeatedly says, “I wish the boy was here,” which also may be regarded as Santiago wishing for his own youth in addition to the boys company (Jobes). Santiago realizes that when he was young he would have been able to bring the fish in without having to struggle with a bad left hand and cramping back. As Santiago calls for the boy, he is also calling for the lost boy in himself to return. Through baseball talk, Santiago teaches Manolin the multitude of his lessons on life. While the two speak casually about baseball Santiago is the teacher and Manolin the absorbed pupil. Though their conversation may not appear to be Santiago’s lesson to Manolin, Santiago is teaching Manolin proper behavior. For example, Manolin and Santiago discuss the prosperity of the Yankees during the season in The Old Man and the Sea:
“The Yankees cannot lose.” “But I fear the Indians of Cleveland.” “Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.” “I fear both the Tigers of Detroit and the Indians of Cleveland.” “Be careful or you will fear even the Reds of Cincinnati and the White Sox of Chicago.” (Hemingway 17).
As Santiago reassures Manolin about the Yankees’ certain success, he also is advising Manolin about faith and useless fear. Santiago shows his certain faith in DiMaggio and the New York Yankees. This faith symbolizes his faith in fishing and that at some point his bad luck will end. He tries to teach Manolin that without faith Santiago would have given up, and lost his pride. Secondly, Santiago is teaching the boy to never give in to fear, or it may consume him. In the final lines of the selection, Santiago tells Manolin he must not be fearful of the Reds or the White Sox. He is teaching him that he must trust what he knows to be true, otherwise he will be overcome by fear of a team such as the inferior Chicago White Sox, or even a team that is not in the same league, such as the Cincinnati Red Sox (Barbour). Baseball is also important to the plot of the novel from the allusions that Hemingway makes during the story. For example, the sword of the fish is described as being “as long as a baseball bat” (Hemingway 62) and as Santiago finally reels the fish in he uses “both his hands in a swinging motion” (Hemingway 86). There is numerical importance in the number three in both baseball and the novel. For example, Santiago catches the fish after three days. A baseball player makes a home run after running around three bases. A baseball player also strikes out after three strikes. Santiago’s favorite baseball player, Joe DiMaggio, represents Santiago’s need for strength, and victory in the face of defeat. Santiago respects DiMaggio immensely due to the strong connection he feels to the baseball hero. DiMaggio’s father was a fisherman alike to Santiago. Both Santiago and DiMaggio show complete commitment to their trade and professions. DiMaggio represents the importance of mastering a trade to Santiago. He shows skill, strength, and endurance in his baseball skills, but most importantly, he is exact (Barbour). Santiago deals with a bad left hand that cramps while he fishes, and DiMaggio suffers from a bone spur in his foot. Both are experiencing a bad luck streak. DiMaggio’s team the New York Yankees have not won a game for some time, and Santiago has not caught a single fish in more than eighty days. DiMaggio’s achievement in the face of pain from his bone spur provides motivation for Santiago. As Santiago is struggling against the fish and his crippled left hand, he remembers the great DiMaggio and his bone spur. This drives Santiago to battle through the pain in his hand and catch the fish. It also motivates Santiago to try to preserve the fish through the shark-infested waters. Santiago wonders what DiMaggio would have thought of his battle against the sharks by thinking, “I wonder how the great DiMaggio would have liked the way I hit him in the brain? It was no great thing he thought, any man could do it. But do you think my hands were as great a handicap as the bone spurs?” (Hemingway 114). Throughout the story baseball symbolizes the idea of victory in the face of defeat, and the necessity for heroic actions (Barbour). The lions symbolize Santiago’s youth and his longing for his former strength. Baseball and the memories of the lions are all that Santiago has that is not his calling of fishing. They are his dreams and his ideal world. They have formed Santiago into a moral man who will strive through obstacles and not allow fear to overtake him. The various creatures and objects in The Old Man and the Sea symbolize the connection between life forces. The skiff that Santiago floats upon is the platform that separates the life of the creatures in the ocean and those above sea level. The fishing line between Santiago and the fish is the link between man and nature. It is the connection between two worthy opponents, each hanging on for their life (Murphy). The connections between the creatures in the novel represent life and its challenges. This is first shown as Santiago views the dark terns trying but not succeeding in catching fish:
Why did they make the 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 and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea (Hemingway 29)
The symbolism of the ocean as life is first shown in this selection. In connection to the ocean being life, the sea birds are similar to people facing difficult challenges in life. As the ocean may either be cruel or be very beautiful, so may life. At times life is wonderful and pleasing, but may turn to harsh circumstances quickly. The reader again sees this symbolism as Santiago battles the great marlin. First Santiago celebrates the success of catching such a large fish, and then he makes the realization that he will have to fight to be able to catch it. The battle with the fish represents life’s gives and takes. As the fish takes out more line, Santiago pulls harder. The marlin is the great prize and Santiago’s love in life. After catching it and almost succeeding in bringing the fish to harbor, sharks come and eat the fish. The sharks represent adversaries that people confront during their lifetimes and the fish represents success. Santiago is left near death by the end of the story, much like how many people feel after suffering huge loss. Though The Old Man and the Sea symbolizes life as a whole, more specifically it represents Ernest Hemingway’s life and career. In most of Hemingway’s work he creates a difference between the ‘Hemingway hero’ and the ‘Hemingway code hero.’ The Hemingway hero is a living character that is essential to the story’s plot. The Hemingway code hero is not always in a human form, but represents an ideal that the Hemingway hero tries to follow. Santiago represents both the hero and the code hero by trying to learn in situations, but by already possessing the characteristics of courage and humility. It is important that Hemingway made the code hero and the Hemingway hero the same character, because it creates reason to believe that Santiago is the character by which Hemingway wanted to be represented (Young). Santiago’s journey to catch the fish, and Hemingway’s career parallel each other. Hemingway had been famous for his early works, such as The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms. Santiago had become well known for his strength and his ability to catch fish in the early part of his life. Hemingway underwent years without another great story, and all hope that his fans had for him to reaffirm his reputation were lost. (Baughman). Santiago goes eighty-four days without catching a single fish. Other fishermen either pity him for his bad luck, or find it comical that he cannot catch fish. Ernest Hemingway labored over his book Across the River and Into the Trees just as Santiago labors over the marlin in order to hook his lost success. After catching the fish, sharks eat the marlin until there is nothing left but the skeleton of the fish, and memory of its former grandeur. The sharks symbolize Hemingway’s opinion of critics. The critics of Across the River and Into the Trees tore it apart until there was nothing left. Hemingway felt he had nothing after the failure that was Across the River and Into the Trees, just as Santiago realizes that though he has the skeleton of the fish, he will not gain anything after his three days of laboring over the fish. Both men manage to bear hope after their loss, as one is lead to believe that Santiago plans to fish again the next day. Hemingway continued to write and later publish, for which he received massive critical acclaim, The Old Man and the Sea. In addition to their careers being alike, Hemingway made Santiago an expatriate in order to represent his personal feeling of being exiled. An expatriate is a person who is living outside of their native country. Santiago was born in Spain and lived in the Canary Islands until he was in his twenties. He left Spain for the fishing in Cuba. After living in Cuba for sixty years, Santiago continues to feel that he is an outsider. At this time many Cubans disliked having the Spaniards living in their country. Santiago cannot connect with Cubans because of their dislike of Spaniards, but also does not associate with the other Spaniard fishermen. His only connection to Cuba was his Cuban wife who passed away years earlier. Santiago does not have the finances to return to Spain, so he may only dream of his true home. Hemingway also felt like an expatriate during the prime of his career. He lived and wrote in Paris, France with many of his literary colleagues. Still, he longed for his home in the United States and dreamt of being able to hunt and fish again instead of being immobilized in the high society of Paris (Herlihy). Santiago and Hemingway also are alike in their need for perfectionism in their trade. Santiago keeps his lines straight at all times because he realizes that he has no luck, and instead must be carefully exact. Hemingway worked tirelessly on his writing before allowing it to be published. He rewrote his works, especially The Old Man and the Sea, until he was confident in its success. As Philip Young said in his essay, “The Old Man and the Sea: Vision/Revision,” on the importance of expertise in the two men’s work:
The Old Man and the Sea is, from one angle, an account of Hemingway’s personal struggle, grim, resolute and eternal, to write his best. With his seriousness, his precision and his perfectionism, Hemingway saw his craft exactly as Santiago sees his (Young).
The two men have complete dedication to their craft. Santiago views his fishing and Hemingway viewed his writing as his personal calling and reason for being placed on earth. Hemingway connects the two men’s trade in The Old Man and the Sea as he describes Santiago’s fishing line as being “thick around as a pencil” (Hemingway 31). Hemingway uses Santiago in his novel to mirror his own passion and obsession with preciseness in his craft. Finally, Santiago’s story is a symbol of Christian beliefs. Critics have agreed that there are many biblical parallels in The Old Man and the Sea (Flora). Hemingway uses three specific Christian concepts throughout the story. As said in the I Corinthians, Chapter 13 of the New Testament, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” Santiago shows these three principles chronically through the story. Primarily, Santiago shows that he has unyielding faith in fishing and his dreams. Every night he dreams of lions, which signify his belief that he will begin a better time, and possibly signifies his expectation of heaven. He never abandons his confidence in the lions and better times, even as the sea and the sharks try him mercilessly. Santiago pronounces his faith in fishing during his conversation with Manolin. “ ‘He hasn’t much faith.’ ‘No’ the old man said. ‘But we have. Haven’t we?’ ” (Hemingway 11). Santiago never ceases to believe that he will catch fish again, even after more than eighty days of desolate fishing. The second Christian ideal shown in the story is hope. As Santiago begins his journey out to sea Hemingway describes Santiago’s feeling of hope by writing, “His hope and confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises” (Hemingway 13). Santiago has hope that he will once again fish as successfully as he did in his youth. Without this hope Santiago would feel no reason to continue trying, and may have stopped fishing. After Santiago catches the fish, he may not have tried to stop the sharks from eating his prize fish if he did not have hope that he could defend the marlin. As the sharks try to discourage Santiago’s hope, Santiago summons his respect of the great DiMaggio. He realizes that his hero never gave up, even through the painful bone spur that could have ended his career. It gives Santiago hope to know that a person, much like himself, could win in a battle that seems almost impossible. After killing the fish, Santiago tells himself, “It is silly not to hope… Besides, I believe it is a sin” (Hemingway 101). The third moral described in the biblical selection is charity. Santiago shows his charity through his love for the fish. He tries to give the fish a suitable heroic death. He does not kill the fish out of pride, but out of need, and his belief that he is meant to catch the fish. Before killing the fish, Santiago tells it, “Fish… I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends” (Hemingway 54). He cares about the fish, and for the fish’s sake hopes that the battle will be over soon. After killing the fish, Santiago protects it from the sharks due to his respect for the fish. He cannot allow the sharks to defile such a beautiful, majestic creature. There are Biblical parallels in the story through the numbers that Hemingway chooses to use. Santiago spends forty days fishing without the boy or luck in his fishing before catching the fish. He then spends three days trying to catch the fish, and on the third catches, and loses the fish to the shark. In the biblical story of Noah and the flood, Noah spends forty days at sea to survive the cleansing of sin in the world. In the story of Easter and the crucifying of Christ, Jesus spends forty days in the desert resisting temptation from the devil. After his exile, throughout the course of three days he dies, is buried, and then resurrected. The number three returns again in The Old Man and the Sea, moments before Santiago catches the fish. Before finally giving up and dying, the fish circles the skiff three times. Santiago’s journey in the novel also symbolizes a person’s journey through sin and redemption. By the middle of the story, Hemingway suggests that Santiago has sinned by describing him as going “too far out.” The idea of going too far out means that he has crossed a boundary and has therefore sinned. Santiago debates with himself if killing the marlin was a sin by saying:
You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food…. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him while he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more? (Hemingway 105).
Santiago continuously reminds himself that it is his own fault that he lost the fish because he went ‘too far out.’ After coming into the harbor Santiago asks himself, “And what beat you?” and thinks to himself, “Nothing… I went out too far” (Hemingway 120). Santiago’s punishment for his sin comes in the form of the sharks. The sharks rip apart the fish until there is nothing left because Santiago should not have gone so far out and killed the fish. Santiago repents his sins by the end of the story as he heads back to harbor. After he arrives in Havana, the reader is left to believe that he is at the end of his life, and due to his condition and his age, will die soon. The fact that he arrives in Havana is important because the name is similar to heaven, and symbolic of heaven. In review, Santiago sins, is punished, repents, and arrives in heaven. Finally, the story is symbolic of Christianity because Santiago is himself, a Christ figure. Hemingway first shows Santiago’s biblical importance through his name. The name Santiago is Spanish for Saint James. Saint James was one of Jesus’ first disciples and helped the spread of Christianity (Davis). A second moment that shows Santiago’s faith is that he keeps a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in his small shack. Santiago spends forty days and nights in exile on the sea, just as Jesus spent that time in the desert. Hemingway first obviously connects Santiago and Christ as he describes the noise Santiago makes when he sees the sharks as “a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood” (Hemingway 103). Santiago’s ordeal with the sharks is symbolic of the crucifying of Christ. As he sails home, Santiago thinks to himself, “Think about something cheerful, old man…. Every minute now you are closer to home” (Hemingway 104). This quote is symbolic of Jesus waiting for death and heaven on the cross. After finally reaching his destination, Santiago tiresomely carries the mast uphill on his shoulder, falls, and then makes it to the cabin. The symbolism to Christ is unmistakable in this moment. Before being crucified, Jesus carried the cross, which symbolized our sins. When Santiago finally reaches his shack, he falls facedown on his cot, both arms straight out with his palms out. This image cements Santiago as symbolizing a Christ figure.
Hemingway’s use of symbolism gives The Old Man and the Sea depth, even with its deceptively simple plot. First, he makes his characters symbols of life and the interaction between living creatures. Second, Hemingway uses symbolism to create a parallel between Santiago and his own life. Finally, Hemingway created the character Santiago as a Christ figure, and added Christian morals to the plot. The use of symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea is the foundation for its success, and the reason that it is a classic in American literature.