Hemingway’s Old Man contemplates life on the Sea

Ernest Hemingway’s last major work was The Old Man and the Sea, published in 1952. A short novel, it tells the tale of a single day of an old fisherman outside of Havana, Cuba. He is thought past his prime and the locals think maybe he has lost his mind, but one young man still believes in him, and believes he has much that he can teach. One day, the old man goes out by himself and goes further out to the sea than anyone else, in hopes of finding a great catch. He spends the day talking to himself and contemplating what he has left to offer, before he feels a great fish grab one of his lines. Over the course of the next 3 days, he fights the fish, tiring both of them out, but he knows how fish think and behave and is finally able to reel him in. However, the fish has pulled him even further away from land, and in the course of making his way back, sharks continually attack, and there is nothing left of the great kill before the old man makes it back, late at night on the third day. All that is left is the skeleton, and while its great size causes quite the stir among the other fisherman, it doesn’t change their view of the old man. The young man though promises to start fishing with the older, so he can learn his ways.

This book won a Pulitzer in 1953 and was cited as a contributing factor when the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hemingway in 1954. Since it is written mostly in the old man’s head, it is written as he thinks, which is to say, it flows in a simple way but with quiet intelligence. The old man is not a scholar but he has a lifetime of experience in fishing and knows all there is to know, to the point that small actions in his conquest are carried out almost by instinct. He knows how to tire the fish, knows when to pull and when to let out line, knows what the fish will do and what it will not do. As the third day comes, the old man knows that he or the fish will die that day, and he is content with either outcome. Great, quick read.