The Old Man And The Sea By Ernest Hemingway

 

A story of a destroyed but undefeated thin, old, gaunt man, Santiago, with an unlucky boat.

A story of a decrepit man with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck,

Everything was old about him, but for his cheerful and infallible eyes!

With no fisherman luck for straight 84 days/salao,

For 40 days accompanied with a boy, Manolin, but now alone in a skiff,

But the boy with an empathetic heart,

Would be sad to see him come back every day with an empty skiff!

Few made fun, others were sad for him!

The bond between the two is way too adorable!

Both have sincere love and care for each other.

Deciding to stake the outer lying areas of the sea,

He ventures rowing early dark morning,

Lost in his musings, a gigantic fish, Marlin, eats his sardine bait,

Breaking his reverie!

The line gets stretched taut, almost to the breaking point,

But the fish stays parallel to the boat, and sails along!

He keeps wishing fervently for the boy,

And feels alone, keeps cursing his diminishing strength!

Suddenly the fish gives a mighty pull,

Tipping the old man overboard,

He says Hail Marys and Our Fathers,

To magically assist his quest for conquering the fish,

It is a story of adventure of the man to get hold of marlin!

In this conquest, he finally kills the marlin,

safely secures it to the skiff,

but subsequently sharks take over,

gnawing away and eating marlin’s flesh,

what remains clinging to the skiff, is just the skeleton!

Santiago "sailed lightly now and he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind”

Arriving at his shack, he collapses on his bed all tired and falls asleep!

Manolin sees fisherman gathered around the skiff, measuring the marlin at eighteen feet long. 

That afternoon there are tourists on the Terrace.

Wondering with amazement if it is a skeleton of a shark.

Meanwhile, back in Santiago's shack, the old man "was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about lions"!!

 

#########################

I am personally a fan of stories about sea and seafarers. I forever tried my best to increase the rating beyond 3-stars, but could not! Maybe because of the exposition of hopelessness, declining age and at no juncture of the story, seeing infused-hope, detained me from falling in love with this award-winning story!

##########################

What stood out for me?

 

The unique relationship between the old man and boy, comprising of sincere love and friendship! Afterall, they had spent countless hours on the sea together. Love and concern weren’t incumbent on the boy, but just out of compassion for the old man! 😊

 

Old age – the limitation of being old is shown clearly in this story. Though the old man keeps cursing his diminishing strength, old and decrepit body, but he remains undefeated, until the very end of his battle with the sea!

 

The old man returns back from this solitary journey without any fish, but with few personal triumphs, to join the great fish Marilyn for eternity! The closing line, mentions about him dreaming of lions. Lions are symbolic of valor, strength and youth. So in my view this story propounds a lot on aging and diminishing strength!