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| First Edition Cover (1952) |
-Brian Mendonca
The Old Man and the Sea (1953) is a novella by American writer Ernest Hemingway. It tells the story of Santiago, an old fisherman from Havana, Cuba, who has not caught a fish for 84 days. He faces ridicule from other fishermen, but the one who always stands by him is a boy whom he taught to fish.
The boy takes care of Santiago after the death of his wife and even knows where everything is placed in his little dwelling. They have a charade when the boy comes over and they refer to things in the house that are not really there. They pass it off as 'fiction.'
'No one should be left alone in their old age.' (53)
Santiago goes fishing in the dark before daybreak. He puts down many lines at different depths to bait the fish. He senses the tug of a big fish on the line. After a while the big fish begins to tow the small skiff in which he is fishing. ' I wonder if he has any plans or is he as desperate as I am,' (54) Santiago muses.
Santiago recognizes the fish as the male of a pair of marlin. He along with the boy had butchered its mate some time ago. (55) He becomes obsessed with this fish. He cuts the other lines he has dropped into the sea so he can have more slack to pull the fish in. (57)
Alone at sea, the man begins to talk to himself. He also talks to a little bird who comes to rest on his skiff. (56) He keeps reminding himself to eat the tuna and eats it after cutting it into slices. (64) He starts talking to his hand which was injured when the fish jerked on the line. 'How do you feel, hand?' (64) he says.
He is diminished by the vastness of the sea. But he comes to the realization that 'no man is ever alone on the sea.' (67) He is a keen observer of the clouds quoting the cumulus and cirrus varieties. (68)
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