Theme idea heroes old man and the sea. "The Old Man and the Sea": the philosophical meaning of the story, the strength of the old man's character

In contrast to the demonstrative rebellion of youth against well-fed comfort, standardization and the philistine indifference of the modern world to the human person, the creative position of those who in the 1950s could be called "Fathers" of American Literature The 20th century, at first glance, looked moderate and evasive, but in reality it turned out to be wise and balanced. They wrote books that were not documents of the era, but had absolute significance and narrated about primeval things. Significant is the appearance in one decade of two different, but equally deep stories-parables about a man and his life, created by American writers of the older generation. This is "Pearl" (1957) J. Steinbeck and "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952) by E. Hemingway.

Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning story "The Old Man and the Sea" is one of the pinnacles of American and world literature of the 20th century. The book is two-dimensional. On the one hand, this is a completely realistic and reliable story about how the old fisherman Santiago caught a huge fish, how a flock of sharks attacked this fish, and the old man failed to recapture his prey, and he brought only a fish carcass to the shore. But behind the realistic fabric of the narrative, another, generalized, epic-fabulous beginning clearly emerges. It is palpable in the deliberate exaggeration of the situation and details: the fish is too huge, there are too many sharks, there is nothing left of the fish - the skeleton is gnawed clean, the old man is alone against the whole flock.

This beginning is even more clearly felt in the image of the central character: in the manner of an old man to humanize nature, to communicate with the sea, seagulls, fish. This unsightly-looking "poor worker" (a typical character of fairy-tale folklore), with a face and hands eaten away by sunburn and skin disease, turns out to be incredibly strong physically and spiritually. He is great - like a fairy-tale hero or a hero of an ancient epic. Not without reason, the old man has young blue eyes, and at night he dreams of lions. It is no coincidence that he feels himself a part of nature, the universe. The presence of the second generalized fairy-tale plan emphasizes the universality, depth of the problem, gives the book a poetic ambiguity.

Criticism interpreted the underlying, allegorical meaning of the story in different ways - in a narrowly biographical, Christian, existentialist spirit. They saw in it either an allegory of the creative process, or an analogy to the gospel plot of Christ's ascent to Golgotha, or a parable about the futility of human efforts and the tragedy of his existence. There is some truth in each of these interpretations. Hemingway really put a lot of himself into the image of old Santiago and to some extent opened the door to his own creative laboratory.

The book really has evangelical associations, because the Bible is the source that feeds all American literature, and turning to it not only enhances the poetic sound of the work and enlarges its scope, but also clarifies a lot to the domestic reader, familiar with it from childhood. And, finally, "The Old Man and the Sea" is really a parable. About man, about his essence, about his place on earth. But, I think, not about the futility of human efforts, but about the inexhaustibility of its possibilities, about its stamina and fortitude. "A man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated" - Hemingway's creed.

The old man does not feel defeated: he still managed to catch a fish. It is no coincidence that the story ends with a boy. Manulino will again be released with the old man into the sea, and then Santiago's efforts will not be in vain - neither in practical nor in human terms, because the boy is both a real help and a continuation of the old fisherman's life work, an opportunity to pass on his experience.

This book, with its universal range of problems, would seem to have nothing to do with the current topic of the day. What is described here could happen in any country - on any sea or ocean coast - and at any time. Nevertheless, its appearance in this era is quite natural. It fits in remarkably well with the trend of non-conformity in American literature in the 1950s. Only young rebels operate with catchy facts, and Hemingway with philosophical categories. His short story is not a protest against the existing world order, but its philosophical negation.

The poeticization of physical labor, the affirmation of the unity of man and nature, the uniqueness of the personality of the "little man", the general humanistic sound, the complexity of the idea and the refinement of the form - all this is an active denial of the values ​​of consumer civilization, a response to America and a warning to the entire modern post-war world.

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Ernest Hemingway is the most truthful American writer of the 20th century. Having once seen the grief, pain and horror of the war, the writer vowed to be “more truthful than the truth itself” until the end of his life. In The Old Man and the Sea, the analysis is determined by the internal philosophical meaning of the work. Therefore, when studying Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea" in the 9th grade in literature lessons, it is necessary to get acquainted with the biography of the author, his life and creative position. Our article includes all the necessary information on the analysis of the work, the themes, issues and history of the creation of the story.

Brief analysis

History of creation- created on the basis of a story that the author learned from fishermen in Cuba and described in an essay in the 30s.

Year of writing- The work was completed in February 1951.

Subject- a dream and victory of a person, a struggle with oneself at the limit of human capabilities, a test of the spirit, a fight with nature itself.

Composition- a three-part composition with a ring frame.

Genre- story-parable.

Direction- realism.

History of creation

The idea of ​​the work came from the writer in the 30s. In 1936, Esquire magazine published his essay “On Blue Water. Gulfstream letter. It describes the approximate plot of the legendary story: an elderly fisherman goes to sea and for several days without sleep and food “fights” with a huge fish, but the sharks eat the old man’s prey. It is found by fishermen in a semi-mad state, and sharks are circling around the boat.

It was this story, once heard by the author from Cuban fishermen, that became the basis of the story “The Old Man and the Sea”. Many years later, in 1951, the writer finishes his large-scale work, realizing that this is the most important work in his life. The work was written in the Bahamas and was published in 1952. This is the last work of Hemingway published during his lifetime.

Since childhood, Hemingway, like his father, was fond of fishing, he is a professional in this field, he knew the whole life and life of fishermen to the smallest detail, including signs, superstitions and legends. Such valuable material could not be reflected in the author's work, it became a confession, a legend, a textbook of the philosophy of life of a simple person who lives by the fruits of his labor.

In dialogues with criticism, the author avoided commenting on the idea of ​​the work. His credo: to truthfully show "a real fisherman, a real boy, a real fish and real sharks." This is exactly what the author said in an interview, making it clear that his desire is realism, avoiding any other interpretation of the meaning of the text. In 1953, Hemingway received recognition once again, receiving the Nobel Prize for his work.

Subject

Theme of the work- a test of strength of human willpower, character, faith, as well as the theme of dreams and spiritual victory. The theme of loneliness and human destiny is also touched upon by the author.

Main thought works are to show a person in a struggle with nature itself, its creatures and elements, as well as the struggle of a person with his weaknesses. A huge layer of the author's philosophy is drawn clearly and clearly in the story: a person is born for something specific, having mastered this, he will always be happy and calm. Everything in nature has a soul, and people should respect and appreciate this - the earth is eternal, they are not.

Hemingway is amazingly wise in showing how a man achieves his dreams and what follows. A huge marlin is the most important trophy in the life of old Santiago, he is proof that this man won the battle with nature, with the creation of the sea. Only what is given with difficulty, makes you go through difficult trials, problems - brings happiness and satisfaction to the main character. The dream, inherited by sweat and blood, is the biggest reward for Santiago. Despite the fact that the sharks ate marlin, no one cancels the moral and physical victory over circumstances. The personal triumph of an elderly fisherman and the recognition of “colleagues” in society is the best thing that could happen in his life.

Composition

Conventionally, the composition of the story can be divided into three parts: the old man and the boy, the old man at sea, the return of the protagonist home.

All compositional elements are formed on the image of Santiago. Ring frame composition consists in the departure of the old man to the sea and his return. The peculiarity of the work is that it is saturated with internal monologues of the protagonist and even dialogues with himself.

Hidden biblical motifs can be traced in the speeches of the old man, his position in life, in the name of the boy - Manolin (abbreviated from Emmanuel), in the image of the giant fish itself. She is the embodiment of the dream of an old man who humbly, patiently meets all trials, does not complain, does not swear, but only quietly prays. His philosophy of life and the spiritual side of existence is a kind of personal religion, very reminiscent of Christianity.

Genre

In literary criticism, it is customary to designate the genre of "The Old Man and the Sea" as story-parable. It is the deep spiritual meaning that makes the work exceptional, going beyond the traditional story. The author himself admitted that he could have written a huge novel with many storylines, but preferred a more modest volume in order to create something unique.

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The Theme of Fortitude in E. Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"

Introduction

Conclusion

Introduction

The story "The Old Man and the Sea" is a key and significant not only for the work of E. Hemingway (07/21/1899 - 07/02/1961), but also for all American literature. "In the post-war years, - Y. Zasursky notes, - this book stands out as a humanistic work, imbued with faith in man, in his strength, and opposed to the literature of decline, pessimism and disbelief that has captured the forefront of American cultural life of the last two decades."

The story puts in a generalized form the most important eternal themes: man and nature, the inner content of life, the continuity of generations and, no matter how trite it sounds, the meaning of life. These are the problems of human dignity, morality, the development of the human personality through struggle - something that a thinking person decided in the past, decides now and will decide later. Therefore, E. Hemingway as a writer is interesting in our time. A significant place in the story is occupied by the image of a man struggling with nature, with himself, fighting, showing unprecedented stamina, therefore it is so important for us to understand the true meaning, the symbolism of this struggle through the theme of stamina, which is clearly revealed in the work.

Relevanceof this work lies in the inexhaustible interest in Hemingway's work, in the desire to delve deeper into the writer's artistic intentions, to understand why Hemingway brought out such an ambiguous hero. The purpose of our work follows from the relevance. aimwork is an analysis of the specifics of the artistic world of the story "The Old Man and the Sea".

Materialfor research is directly the story of E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea" and a number of other works related to the theme of the development of resilience ("Fiesta", "The Sun Also Rises").

An objectproposed research - Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea".

Itemresearch is a theme of resilience and courage.

Tasksthis study:

) to reveal the originality of the artistic world of the writer, his works;

) consider the development of the theme of resilience in the story "The Old Man and the Sea".

This work consists of an introduction, two chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction describes the relevance of this work, the purpose and methods of the study. The first chapter tells about the creative path of the writer, about the history of the creation of the story "The Old Man and the Sea", about its genre affiliation. The second chapter reveals the image of the protagonist, talks about the ambiguity of Hemingway's disclosure of the theme of resilience. In conclusion, the general conclusion of the study is given.

Among the scientific works devoted to the work of Hemingway, one should note the numerous works of I. Kashkin, who received worldwide recognition. Quite detailed essays on the writer's work are written by M. Mendelssohn. Also, certain aspects of his work were analyzed in the articles by A. Platonov, Y. Olesha, I. Finkelstein, Y. Zasursky, A. Elyashevich, R. Orlova, I. Shakirova, B. Gribanov, A. Murza, T. Denisova and others .

E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952), for which he received the Nobel Prize, caused various interpretations of critics. I. Kashkin in his article "Content-form-content" expressed the idea that "The Old Man and the Sea" is a fairly traditional book for Hemingway, and it became only an external reason for the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee, taking advantage of her exit, hastened to reward Hemingway, "until he gave out another direct bomb, which was in many respects the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls." Another Russian literary critic A.I. Startsev notes that "the author's inclination" The Old Man and the Sea" introduces elements of a moral and philosophical "essay" into the story to abstract moralization, making it related in this sense to Melville's "Moby Dick". Literary critic B. Gribanov in the article "You Can't Defeat a Man" writes that in the old man Hemingway finally found that harmonious hero whom he had been looking for all his writing life.Critic Ark. Elyashevich compares the idea of ​​the story "The Old Man and the Sea" with Hemingway's early story "The Undefeated" (1925), where the image of a lonely man, beaten by life, but not broken. In the later story, the writer was able to give this image "a deep, generalizing meaning, make it more significant, large-scale." Another literary critic, which I would like to mention b, N.A. Chugunova, draws attention to spatio-temporal relations in the story "The Old Man and the Sea". From the moment the fish is caught, the story more and more clearly acquires "the character of a symbolic-philosophical reflection on life, on the laws of being, and this, as it were, further expands its meaning, its horizons."

There is a lot of controversy among critics about the functions of characters in the story. The American critic L. Gurko believes that this story was created by Hemingway, a romantic; another American critic K. Baker sees in it a convincing proof of his thesis about the "symbolic basis" of the entire work of the writer. E. Halliday (an American critic) argued that Hemingway used in his work not symbols, but "symbols of associations." The writer thoughtfully selected facts and details, creating metaphors that had a much broader meaning than the direct meaning of the image. But in this sense, according to Halliday, all great literature is "symbolic".

In our work, we have tried to apply the widest possible range of research methods available to philology. In addition to the traditional comparative literary method, one should also mention intertextual, associative, descriptive, cultural and biographical methods.

This work will find practical application directly in literature lessons at school and university, as well as in extracurricular activities.

In accordance with the dictionary of Efremova (T.F. Efremova "The New Dictionary of the Russian Language", M., "Russian Language, 2000), heroism is "courage, determination and self-sacrifice in a critical situation", stamina is "distracting. noun by value adj.: persistent", and, in turn, persistent - 2) trans. "Possessing perseverance; unshakable, firm."

It is difficult to overestimate the role and importance of the theme of "persistence" in the work of E. Hemingway, which is a reflection of the author's intentions, helping to reveal the writer's creative intention. This is the essence of our work, its core, around which all thoughts and maxims related to the analysis of the story "The Old Man and the Sea" are concentrated.

There is a subtext in the works of Hemingway, and no matter how much literary critics try to explain it, they will still be far from the truth. The problems raised in the story are so multifaceted and universal that the conversation about the story can be carried on forever.

fortitude hemingway story old man

1. The story of E. Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea"

1.1 The history of the creation of the story "The Old Man and the Sea"

The outstanding American writer Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a quiet and orderly suburb of Chicago.

"The writer's father, Clarence Hemingway, was a doctor, but his main passion in life was hunting and fishing, and he instilled a love for these pursuits in his son."

Hemingway experienced the first joy of communicating with nature in the forests of Northern Michigan, where the family spent the summer months on the shores of Lake Boulder. The impressions he received there will later provide rich material for his work. Hemingway wanted to be a writer since childhood. Identifying himself with his hero Nick Adams, he wrote many years later: "Nick wanted to be a great writer. He was sure he would become one."

This is a very important statement for the writer, it contains the key to one of the most important themes of his entire work - about the earth, which "will last forever." Like any great writer, he sought and found his own way in literature. One of his main goals was clarity and brevity of expression. "Clarity is a must for a good writer. The first and most important thing is to strip the tongue and make it clean, clean to the bone, and that takes work."

Around the American writer Ernest Hemingway, legends developed during his lifetime. Having made the leading theme of his books the courage, resilience and perseverance of a person in the fight against circumstances that doom him to almost certain defeat in advance, Hemingway strove to embody the type of his hero in life. A hunter, a fisherman, a traveler, a war correspondent, and when the need arose, then a soldier, he chose the path of greatest resistance in everything, testing himself "for strength", sometimes risking his life not for the sake of thrills, but because a meaningful risk, like him thought it befits a real man.

The works of the 1920s and 1930s by Hemingway are filled with a sharp sense of tragedy. An indelible mark on his soul, a heart wound that never closes, riddled with bitter pain, was left by the events that he witnessed in his youth: this is the First World War, and the gravest sufferings of the civilian population. Hemingway often recalled what he observed as a European correspondent for a Canadian newspaper covering the events of the Greco-Turkish War. These terrible sufferings of the people affected their worldview. “I remember,” Hemingway wrote, “I came home from the Middle East with a completely broken heart and in Paris I was trying to decide whether I should devote my whole life to trying to do something about it, or become a writer. And I decided, cold as a snake, to become a writer and write all my life as truthfully as I can."

Doomed to failure, the pursuit of elusive happiness, shattered dreams and hopes, loss of inner balance, the tragedy of human life - this is what Hemingway saw in the surrounding gloomy reality.

Gribanov's article "A Man Cannot Be Defeated" also talks about what Hemingway felt and expressed in his early works. "The tragic theme of a person's impotence in the face of Evil sounds in the story "The Killers"; the motive of helplessness in the face of a cruel fate, in front of Fate - in the story" In a Foreign Country ". Hopelessness and bitterness are filled in this story with the cry of the soul of an Italian major who lost his beloved wife when he argues that a person should not marry: "If a person is destined to" lose everything ", he should not put it at stake. He must find what cannot be lost." And this idea - that a person must "find what cannot be lost" - becomes the leitmotif of Hemingway's moral search in those years. But to the writer himself, this search seems hopeless - where in this world to find enduring values "A person lives in a world of cruelty, he is lonely and defenseless, his spiritual ties with other people, even with those closest to him, are unsteady and fragile."

In this tragic, doomed world, it was necessary to find at least some anchor, at least a straw to cling to. Hemingway found such an anchor in the "moral code" he developed in those years. The meaning of this code is as follows: since a person in this life is doomed to defeat, to death, then the only thing left for him to maintain his human dignity is to be courageous, but to succumb to circumstances, no matter how terrible they may be, to observe, like in sports, the rules are "fair play".

This idea is most clearly expressed by Hemingway in the story "Undefeated". For the aging matador Manuel, bullfighting is not only an opportunity to earn money for existence, it is much more - self-affirmation, a matter of professional pride. And even when defeated, a person can remain undefeated. Just like in one story we know, isn't it?

New socio-economic ideas appeared in Hemingway's work in the 1930s, naturally, as an artistic reflection of the new circumstances that arose in the United States during the Great Depression. Such a response was the novel To Have and Not to Have (1937), a novel about a man who alone struggles with society, dooming him and his family to poverty, to death. It was noteworthy in the new novel that the writer brought his lone hero at the moment of his death to a very significant conclusion: "Man alone cannot. Now it is impossible for man to be alone."

Hemingway wrote these words into the proofs of the novel when a fascist rebellion broke out in his beloved Spain in 1936. The Spanish Civil War turned out to be, to a certain extent, a turning point in his political thinking and creative decisions. Hemingway acted as a convinced, passionate, implacable fighter against fascism, he took part in the struggle of the Spanish people for freedom as a writer, as a publicist, and at times as a soldier. In this war, new heroes were revealed to him, with whom Hemingway had not yet had to deal with - communists, fighters of the International Brigades, who voluntarily came to Spain to fight for the freedom of a land alien to them.

Hemingway's famous short and precise phrase has become the subject of a dispute among literary critics - is there a subtext or is it not at all? The subtext exists. It is based on those deep layers of collective consciousness, on those universal categories of culture that artists raised in their work and which are fixed in customs, rituals, various forms of folk festivals, folklore stories of the peoples of the world.

In the same early years, Hemingway also found "his own dialogue" - his characters exchange insignificant phrases, cut off by chance, and the reader feels behind these words something significant and hidden in the mind, something that sometimes cannot be expressed directly.

All of Hemingway's work was interpreted and comprehended from the point of view of "lostness", when the main thing was the search for a person traumatized by the war and who had lost their ideals and their place in the world. Therefore, the object of Hemingway's research was the tragedy of his contemporary, thrown into the cruel world of wars, murders and violence, alienation of people from each other.

Andrey Platonov read in 1938 Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms! and wrote a review opening with the following words: "From reading several works of the American writer Ernest Hemingway, we were convinced that one of his main thoughts is the idea of ​​finding human dignity: "The main thing - dignity - should still be found, discovered somewhere in the world and in the depths of reality, earn it (perhaps at the cost of a hard struggle) and instill this new feeling in a person, educate and strengthen him in himself.

In an effort to portray life truthfully, as realistically as possible, Hemingway saw the highest task of the writer, his vocation. He believed that only truth can help a person. And man can find this truth in the struggle with nature. Nature carries an empirical principle, which means that it is pure, immaculate, eternal and unshakable.

According to Hemingway, "life is generally a tragedy, the outcome of which is a foregone conclusion." He believed that a person in this life is doomed to defeat, and the only thing left for him is to be courageous, not to succumb to circumstances, to observe the rules of "fair play" as in sports.

Hemingway's man intuitively, and later consciously, aspires to his origin, to nature. And at the same time, the post-war character begins to fight with her in order to eventually achieve harmony. But this turns out to be impossible for him. Nature is incredibly difficult to enslave and conquer. She, in the end, turns out to be more powerful than a person imagined her.

But, a person does not lose his "I" when he loses to nature, in the highest sense he remains undefeated, he follows the rules of "fair play". Such a person realizes that nature is higher, stronger, more sacred, wiser. The essence of nature - harmony, becomes only a goal for a person. Therefore, most of Hemingway's heroes are morally grown heroes, for example, the younger generation that overcomes difficulties, improves itself, becoming adults, having undergone a certain rite of initiation.

The fifties are the last decade of Hemingway's life. Its beginning was marked by intensive work on the story "The Old Man and the Sea".

Illness and various unpleasant life events, as well as creative throwing and the search for the meaning of life, distracted Hemingway from working on the "big book". But he was still, as always, worried about the theme of unbending courage, resilience and inner victory in defeat itself.

The first approach to the topic should be considered the essay "On Blue Water", "The Gulf Stream Letter", published back in April 1936 in Esquire magazine. The essay told about an old man who was fishing in the sea, how he caught a huge marlin, which he fought for several days, until he pulled him up to the boat, and how his prey was torn to pieces by sharks that attacked her. It was a sketch of the plot in its general form, which was transformed, overgrown with many new details and details, enriched with deep life and philosophical content.

However, the 16-year-old path from essay to story was not at all direct. Hemingway had completely different thoughts and themes: Spain, China, the Second World War. In the post-war years, Hemingway conceived and made the first drafts of a large epic work, a trilogy dedicated to "land, sea and air." Then the writer suffered an inevitable creative crisis.

After arriving with his wife in Italy, he met a young girl Adriana Ivancic while hunting, whom he saw in the evening in a hunting lodge. She sat by the fire and dried her shiny black hair after the rain, combing it with her long fingers. This primitive picture fascinated the writer. Hemingway broke his comb and gave her half. The girl came from an old Dalmatian family. The last love of the writer was sinless, they were connected only by a platonic relationship. The black-haired muse put an end to the creative crisis. Her "long eyelashes, very dark skin", her classical beauty inspired Hemingway to write his last novel, Across the River, in the Shade of the Trees. The girl was flattered by the love of the venerable writer, but she herself did not have deep feelings for him. The novel "Beyond the River." largely autobiographical. From the creative upsurge caused by the last attachment, the story-parable "The Old Man and the Sea", Hemingway's swan song, was also born.

Hemingway in his essays described the history of the creation of this story and work on it. When asked how the idea for this story came about, Hemingway replied in 1958: "I heard about a man who got into such a situation with a fish. I knew how it happens - in a boat, on the high seas, one on one with a big fish. I took a man whom he had known for twenty years, and imagined him under such circumstances."

He intended to place the story of the old fisherman in that part of the vast canvas of the work, which would tell about the sea. When the idea crystallized, Hemingway began to write rapidly, in one breath. During this time, he experienced an inspiring return of creative powers. As always, Hemingway was very demanding of himself. In a letter to the publisher C. Scribner in October 1951, Hemingway reported: “This is the prose on which I have been working all my life, which should be light and concise, and at the same time convey all the changes in the visible world and the sphere of the human spirit. This is the best prose I'm capable of right now."

1. February 1951 Hemingway put an end to the manuscript, which consisted of 26 thousand 531 words. After the story was reprinted cleanly, Hemingway put it aside, decided to let it "rest in bed", not rushing to publish it.

Meanwhile, the writer's friends, getting acquainted with the "Old Man", invariably expressed their ardent approval and admiration for the honed skill of Hemingway.

To test these impressions, Hemingway sent the manuscript to Carlos Beiner, a professor of literature at Princeton University who had seriously studied the writer's work. Bayner joined in the most flattering assessments of the story, noting that old Santiago is worthy to take a place next to Shakespeare's King Lear. Charles Scribner informed Hemingway that he was ready to print the manuscript, even such a modest volume, as a separate book; at this point, Hemingway finally had the title of his work.

Doubts were finally resolved by the film director Leland Hayward, who was visiting Cuba, who urged Hemingway: "You need to publish this thing, Dad." When Hemingway expressed concern that the manuscript was "too small for a book," L. Hayward replied: "What you have achieved in it is perfection. You would not have been able to say more than what you said if you had written more than a thousand pages" .L Hayward advised to offer the story to the mass illustrated magazine Life, being convinced of its unconditional and well-deserved success. In an effort to truthfully - in other words, realistically - depict life, Hemingway saw the highest task of the writer, his vocation. He believed that only truth can help a person. For this, as will later be said in the story "The Old Man and the Sea", it is necessary to show "what a person is capable of and what he can endure." In September 1952, The Old Man and the Sea was published in Life magazine.

The story speaks for itself, no matter how you interpret it. Hemingway himself, with mocking slyness, shied away from interpreting this story and in a 1954 interview said: “I tried to give a real old man and a real boy, a real sea and a real fish, and real sharks. And if I managed to do it well enough and truthfully, they can be interpreted in many ways. What is really difficult is to create something really true, and sometimes more true than the truth itself. "

The 200-word essay "On the Blue Stream," about a Cuban fisherman who caught a big tuna and fought off a flock of sharks for a long time, ended with the words: "When the fishermen picked him up, the old man sobbed, half-mad from his loss, and in the meantime, the sharks still walked around his boat."

But when Hemingway returned to this topic a quarter of a century later, he approached it in a completely different way. It was no longer a short report, but a story; A particular anecdotal case was enriched by many years of personal experience of Hemingway, a champion tuna fisherman, by many years of neighborhood with the fishermen of Cojimar, a small village near Hemingway's house. He studied their life so much that, in his own words, he could write a book about each of the fishermen, or about the whole village as a whole. However, he both complicated and limited his task by putting much of what he knew about man and the sea into one generalized image of the old fisherman Santiago.

Also, the story can be considered the result of the moral quest of the writer. It contains a deep philosophy. In its style, it is close to the literary genre of the parable, which is based on allegories and contains moral insinuation. Hemingway believed that this was exactly the hero he had been looking for throughout his career. In his image, that humanistic ideal, sung by the writer, about the invincibility of the human person, found its embodiment. Hemingway's hero and his consciousness can only be comprehended in relation to the people, the people's consciousness, evaluated from the people's position.

The ideological, vital search of the writer and the search for his hero are unidirectional. This is a search for the people, familiarization with their joys and sorrows, their desire for freedom, happiness. Therefore, we can say that the courage of Santiago is not only the courage of one person, it is, of course, the courage of the entire Cuban people. A separate person, bred by Hemingway, is only a symbol of the resilience of this long-suffering nation. "The Old Man and the Sea" is evidence of the close connection between Hemingway's mighty talent and the people, whatever the crisis phenomena that complicated this connection, shook Hemingway's work and retarded his development.

In "To have and not to have" Hemingway furiously finished off rich yachtsmen. Here, in The Old Man and the Sea, he gives them only a contemptuous ending about tourists who confuse the backbone of a big fish with a shark, and carefully protects his old man Santiago from any contact with this corrupt environment, allowing him to communicate only with fishermen and nature like him. , as well as with itself.

The story was a huge success, both among critics and among the general reader, causing worldwide resonance and countless interpretations, often contradicting each other. Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for his excellent book.

1.2 Genre specifics of the story

Hemingway's story, which has a dual character and stands out sharply from everything previously written by the author, is therefore not so easy to accurately attribute to one or another genre. It was called: a realistic story, a symbolic story, an allegory story, a philosophical story. I. Kashkin described the story as a philosophical parable with notes of doom, giving it a dual character.

According to Yu. Lidsky, this is a philosophical story, which is based on a purely realistic plot without signs of the miraculous, fantastic or supernatural. “There are no magic signs or numbers, mysterious phenomena or unlikely coincidences in it. In everyday terms, everything in the story is logical, causally determined, the boundaries of the real world are not violated anywhere ... There is nothing mystical or fatal in the fish itself. All the actions of the old man are emphatically real , Manolin's boy and other characters... Such an unusual basis for a philosophical story prompted critics to read the work "on two levels".

The issue itself testifies to its philosophical nature. Everything is important in it, everything plays a significant role, there are no trifles. In this work, the most important topics are posed in a generalized form: man and nature, the inner content of life, a person's sense of self (in other words, the meaning of life), the continuity of generations and projection into the future. Hemingway limits the number of characters and the realities of everyday life to the extreme. The action itself takes place without deviations, which affects the clear architectonic construction of chapters and episodes. It is not only about the old man and the boy, the old man and the fish, but about man and mankind, mankind and nature.

The philosophical significance of the scarcity of things and their characteristics lies primarily in emphasizing that we are talking about the very foundations of human existence, given in the most naked form.

N. Anastasiev, like the most famous researcher of Hemingway's work I. Kashkin, refers the story to the type of "philosophical parable".

By definition, "a parable is a didactic-allegorical genre, in its main features close to a fable. In contrast, the form of a parable:

) is incapable of isolated existence and arises in a certain context, in connection with which it 2) admits the absence of a developed plot movement and can be reduced to a simple comparison, retaining, however, a special symbolic fullness;

S. Averintsev notes that "the parable is intellectual and expressive: its artistic possibilities lie not in the fullness of the image, but in the immediacy of expression, not in the harmony of forms, but in the penetration of intonation." In different poetic systems, the parable is filled with different ethical content.

Hemingway's parable is inseparable from real life (i.e., saturated with the realities of everyday life), descriptive, and this is its peculiarity and difference, for example, from Kafka's philosophical parable with its intentional masquerade or from Sartre's intellectualistic dramaturgy, which excludes "characters" and "situation", Camus, G. Marcel.

N. Anastasiev draws philosophical, semantic and background parallels of the story with the novel "Moby Dick" by Mellville, raising the meaning of the story to a metaphysical level-rebellion, while I. Kashkin, on the contrary, believes that "everything here is more muffled, more reconciled, softer, than in previous books. The old man lives in harmony with all the ordinary people of the neighborhood, everyone loves him (“Tell us that we all sympathize,” the bartender says to the boy. “I live among good people,” Santiago himself thinks; he is pleased to hear Hemingway used to write about the vulnerability and weakness of strong people, here he writes about the moral strength of a decrepit old man ... There is more faith in a person and respect for him, but life itself is reduced to a narrow immediate environment lonely old man.

The opinion of I. Finkelstein is also interesting, who attributed the story to a "timeless plot", and found its style stylized as a biblical style.

The story outlines an attempt to get around the impasse of post-war painful contradictions by turning to the universal theme of resilience, almost abstracted from the current reality. It is a theme of courageous work for the sake of a "big" but narrow goal, which Hemingway has so far defined as "big fish". Some saw this as a figurative meaning, as a request for the author to enter the great literary sea for great booty.

Researchers agree on the humanistic nature of the book, which is open to the future, appearing in the form of support for the old man - the boy Manolin, to whom he passes on his experience. The cycle of nature absorbs the cycle of generations. A humanistic moment should also be noted by the fact that, as I. Kashkin notes, "although the book deals with old age on the very threshold of extinction, in reality no one dies here. Victory, at least moral, is not achieved here at the cost of life."

2. The theme of endurance in Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea"

2.1 The duality of the theme of persistence in the work

The theme of perseverance in the work has two plans of expression:

) Courage of an old man or Man;

) Courage of marlin or Nature.

In this chapter, we will try to consider the features and interrelationships of these two topics.

Of course, the theme of perseverance in the work is resolved ambiguously. Enlarged to the size of abstract symbols, we see two unchanging fighters and eternal enemies: Man and Nature. Their clash cannot lead to the victory of one side or another, which is why Hemingway ends his story so ambiguously. Victory in defeat itself is the motto of this centuries-old struggle. But in general philosophical terms, the wrestlers do not know that the outcome of the struggle is predetermined, and that is why there is a meaning in human life, and that is why the old man Santiago fights, showing inhuman stamina and endurance.

The Cuban loves fish with all his heart. “You didn’t kill a fish just to sell it to others and support your life,” he thought. “You killed it out of pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved this fish while it lived, and you love it now. If you love someone, it's not a sin to kill him. Or maybe, on the contrary, it's even more sinful?"

Perseverance in a fight is shown not only by the fisherman, but also by Nature in the form of a fish. But even before the meeting with the fish, we see the image of a bird whose struggle is meaningless. He anticipates, being a prologue, a herald, the defeat of the old fisherman. Santiago, understands and realizes the futility of the bird’s efforts: “There, apparently, a large flock of mackerel,” the old man thought. “They swim at a distance from each other, and the fish have little chance of escaping. The bird has no hope of catching it. large for a frigate and moving too fast."

It is not difficult to notice that as the bloodthirsty sharks tear off a piece of fish, the old man's strength decreases, sometimes it seems that the sharks are eating the old man, not the fish. That is, the fish and the old man are one and indivisible, twin brothers, twins, who feel each other at a distance. When an old man kills sharks, fights them, he imagines with pleasure how easily the fish would deal with the bloodthirsty galahos in the deep ocean.

The theme of fate in the story is intertwined with the theme of courage, from the very beginning we are witnessing that luck turned away from the fisherman, but he stubbornly goes to sea every day: "The old man was fishing alone on his boat in the Gulf Stream. For eighty-four days he has been walking in the sea and did not catch a single fish. For the first forty days a boy was with him. But day after day he did not bring a catch, and the parents told the boy that the old man was now clearly salao, that is, "the most unlucky one," and ordered to go to sea on another boat, which actually brought three good fish in the first week."

Except for little Manolin, no one believes in the success of the old fisherman, who for many weeks has not been able to catch a single fish. In a conversation with the boy, Santiago acutely feels his deprivation of the gifts of fate, the boy also understands this, so a conversation naturally arises between them about the lottery, where the old man is clearly trying to appease the gods and instill faith in tomorrow's success in his heart, because too much is at stake. The fisherman lives in extreme poverty, he not only has no food, good clothes, bedding (he sleeps on newspapers), he even sold his net! But the net is for a man like him at least the same as a crucifix for a believing person. To cheer himself up, he starts talking about buying a lottery ticket, emphasizing that eighty-five is a lucky number, while subconsciously trying to insure himself in case of failure.

The resilience of a fisherman challenges fate, doom, faith in the predestination of fate, despondency is not in the character of a hero, but fate is rarely condescending to people who do not have humility in their souls, therefore, bestowing, fate, as if laughing, takes everything from the hands of a lucky man, and that is why the outcome of the struggle is a foregone conclusion.

The courage of a fisherman is not one-time, he was often resistant to life's difficulties in the past, when eighty-seven days (three months!) did not bring home a catch. The old man is supported and comforted by a boy who is sincerely attached to his teacher and mentor. When something similar to despair arises in Santiago at other times, Manolin again instills in the old man’s heart faith in the future, patience and stamina, just as a skilled gardener ties a plant weighed down with ripe fruits to a stick that helps him not to break his fragile stem. When the boy joyfully helps an old comrade, Santiago's heart revives, like the sails of a ship that has fallen into a calm, when they are filled with a fresh breeze.

Again he goes to sea, moving away from the coast at a dangerous distance. The sun was at its zenith, it was noon on the 85th day, at which time he realized that a fish had approached one of the green rods at a depth of one hundred fathoms. Finally, he managed to pick up a huge sea monster, from that moment the struggle begins not for life, but for death. The fish drags the ship along, hours pass, and the battle between these two amazing opponents lasts for three days.

The old man and fish formula for endurance is expressed in the words "Fight to the very end." This idea is confirmed by the following lines of the story: “Fish,” he called softly, “I will not part with you until I die.

"Yes, and she will probably not part with me," thought the old man and began to wait for the morning.

The fisherman, who loves to philosophize and chat with himself at other times, is himself aware of the interweaving of his fate and that of the fish: "Her fate was to remain in the dark depths of the ocean, away from all sorts of traps, baits and human deceit. My fate was to go after her alone and find her where no man has penetrated. No man in the world. Now we are bound to each other since noon. And there is no one to help her or me."

When the fish is in pain, the old man also suffers: “At that moment, the fish suddenly rushed and threw the old man on his nose; she would have pulled him overboard if he had not rested his hands on him and let go of the line.

When the line twitched, the bird took off, and the old man did not even notice how it disappeared. He felt the wood with his right hand and saw that blood was flowing from his hand.

That's right, the fish got hurt too, - he said aloud and pulled the line, checking if he could turn the fish in the other direction. Pulling the line to failure, he again froze in the same position.

Are you sick, fish? - he asked. “God knows, it’s not easier for me myself.” Now their fates are connected by the thinnest invisible thread, the fish dies, and the old man swims barely alive after the superhuman stress he experienced in the fight, and if there weren’t a caring, devoted, disinterested friend next to him - who knows, the consequences would not be even sadder and more irreversible.

When the steel hook plunged into the mouth of the fish, it was from that moment that the string tied their lives, like an invisible umbilical cord, it is a kind of symbol of cosmic balance, a guarantee that one scale will not outweigh the other. Something like "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", only much more impassive.

But unlike the dumb creature, the old man has a consciousness, thanks to which he mentally (or aloud) makes volitional settings, that is, like an experienced hypnotist, he influences his own subconscious. These are such apt, precise formulas, such as, for example:

"But you will not part with her until the end";

"If I really need it [hand], I will open it, no matter what it costs me";

"But I will kill you before the evening comes";

"If she endures, then I will endure";

"But I'll still beat her..."

So, let's stop our eyes on the episode of the decisive battle and analyze it in more detail. Both wrestlers come to the fight exhausted, exhausted to the extreme. The old man had not slept for a long time, he ate only raw fish, and even then for a long time, for an hour, black spots jumped in front of the fisherman's eyes, which did not bode well, he weakened, weakened so much that doubts settled in his soul about whether he would emerge victorious from the last battle. And then he turns to higher powers, to God with a request for help. Perhaps, in the depths of his soul, he is semi-conscious that the fish-creature is dumb, and cannot ask the creator for anything, we would call this a method of foul play, if God, of course, exists, which is very doubtful. Santiago, in moments of mortal danger, tries to enlist the support of God, like any person, when it is too difficult for him, and death behind him is so close that he feels her malevolent, fetid breath on his shoulder, exhausted by an unbearable burden.

But let's not forget that the fish is exhausted no less. For several most painful days she did not eat, did not rest, she swam tirelessly, and she was also frightened, and, no doubt, she was frightened by the terrible unknown. Imagine her life for a few moments. She lived quietly in the depths of the sea, all her life accustomed to monotonous peace, everything always went according to the unspoken routine established by nature, and suddenly, at some fateful moment, when she was probably thinking about how she would digest tasty prey, in a hook pierced her head, she experienced hellish pain, at that time ancient primitive instincts came into force, programs that had been helping to survive for centuries. Naturally, she first of all needs to get away from danger, so she begins to swim, swim tirelessly, swim so as not to die. It’s probably funny for us people to see the ridiculous attempts of the fish, but she didn’t know that she was forever connected with her tormentor and dragged him like a trio of frisky horses pulling a cart along the road. But, in the end, when it no longer makes sense to swim, when the fish is clearly in danger of another death - death from hunger - then it understands that it is necessary to get rid of torment, it is necessary to fight. It is at that moment that marlin floats to the surface of the sea.

The struggle between them cannot bear the imprint of everyday life, it requires the concentration of all vital forces, it requires strength, stamina and courage, which are a match for either ancient heroes or gods. The old man feels bad, but the big fish is even worse, there are always a few people in the world who are currently having a harder time than you, but they don’t give up, everyone is fighting for life, striving to win! Here is how Hemingway describes it:

"He gathered all his pain, and all the rest of his strength, and all his long-lost pride, and threw them into a duel with the torment that the fish endured, and then it turned over on its side and quietly swam on its side, barely reaching with the sword to the skin of the boat; she almost floated past, long, wide, silver, intertwined with purple stripes, and it seemed that there would be no end to her.

The old man threw the line, stepped on it with his foot, raised the harpoon as high as he could, and with all the strength that he had and that he could muster at that moment, drove the harpoon into the side of the fish, just behind its huge pectoral fin, rising high above the sea to the level of a human chest. He felt the iron enter into the pulp, and, resting on the harpoon, he thrust it deeper and deeper, helping himself with all the weight of his body.

Let's pay attention to one interesting detail, how exactly the old man kills the fish. With a harpoon blow, he hits her right in the heart. What a beautiful, noble death, fanned by a certain flair of romance. A jealous gentleman would have killed his beloved in the same way. The old man kills bloodthirsty, low-lying sharks more casually: his blows fall indiscriminately: the brain, the eye, the base of the skull, just the pulp, the mouth. And he kills a beautiful purple-silver fish with a well-aimed blow to the heart. How symbolic! The well-known researcher of E. Hemingway's work, I. Kashkin, in his significant works emphasizes that in the story more than in other works of Hemingway, "the sharp line between the simple person to whom the writer is attracted, and his own lyrical hero" is erased. Also, according to I. Kashkin, the image of the old man "loses its integrity, but it becomes richer, more diverse." The old man is not alone, he has someone to pass on his mastery to, and in this sense, "the book is open to the future": "The family passes, and the family comes, but not only the earth, but also human work remains forever, not only in their own creations of art, but and as a skill passed down from hand to hand, from generation to generation."

In "The Old Man and the Sea" "high" vocabulary is also used by both the author and the hero, but its role and pathos of sound are completely different. There is nothing ironic in the way the old man speaks of "fate", "happiness".

Often the old man speaks of the strength of a man, of his belief in victory: “Although this is unfair,” he added mentally, “but I will prove to her what a person is capable of and what he can endure,” about his love for fish and about its superiority. over a man: "Man is not God knows what is next to wonderful animals and birds. I would like to be that beast that is swimming there now, in the depths of the sea." For him, all these things are worthy of lofty words, filled with deep meaning, which the old man is convinced of by his life experience.

Santiago not only talks about high concepts with high style. In one remark of the old man’s internal monologue, on an equally high note, one can talk about the fate of a person, and about quite prosaic things: “It is impossible for a person to remain alone in old age,” he thought. “However, this is inevitable. I should not forget to eat tuna, as long as it is not rotten, because I must not lose strength. I should not forget to eat it in the morning, even if I am not at all hungry. Just do not forget, "he repeated to himself."

The story is characterized by the exaltation of the simplest things, such as food, the sea, animals. Hemingway and old man Santiago in this work achieved harmony, which gives the understanding that it is simple and necessary things that lie at the very foundation of life and that happiness, luck, fate are just as simple things, if you know them. Thanks to this approach to the life of the old man Santiago, everything in the story "The Old Man and the Sea" acquires epic generalization and grandeur: the fish becomes the embodiment of the forces of nature, the boy, whose name is practically not used on the pages of the work, turns into a kind keeper of the old man, and the famous baseball player - into " the great DiMaggio.

The high vocabulary that Hemingway puts into the mouth of the hero shows that everything connected with the old fisherman carries a symbolic meaning.

When the giant fish gives up and it already seems that the old man has achieved the most important victory in his life, the blood of the wounded fish attracts sharks. They swim up to the boat and begin to devour the fish, considering it their rightful prey. Santiago knows that he will not be able to save his trophy, but this does not prevent him from defending it with all his strength, at the limit of human capabilities.

Sharks taking legitimate prey from an old man. Let's keep our eyes on them. Some critics, noting the presence of symbolism in the story, often gave ridiculous, sometimes curious interpretations of the images of The Old Man and the Sea.

In our opinion, sharks are similar to misfortunes and fate, to inexorable time that falls on a person at the most inopportune moment for this and pulls out pieces of fish flesh with sharp jaws. Only a gnawed skeleton remains of the marlin, a sad evidence of defeat - the only thing that the fisherman manages to drag to the shore. But the people who meet him understand that, no matter what, he wins a moral victory. Only a truly great person who has renounced everything earthly is able to make this sacrifice, once again, gritting his teeth, showing unprecedented courage.

In the fight against sharks, the theme of resilience takes on new tones, acquires somewhat different features, exalting this battle to a feat. The parallels are obvious - this is the feat of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, these are epic episodes about how the hero single-handedly deals with thousands of enemy armies. But never before has this topic acquired such tragic notes. Now they've got me, he thought. I'm too old to kill sharks with a club. But I'll fight them as long as I have oars, a club and a tiller.

The heart involuntarily trembles in unison with the heart of Santiago when you read these involuntarily pathetic lines. From here, another theme is born, closely related to the theme of endurance in the work - this is the theme of an anonymous feat that no one will ever know about, but nevertheless a feat worthy of becoming a legend for centuries.

And it is no coincidence that some critics, in particular Baker, compare Santiago with Jesus Christ. The critic believes that Hemingway increased the natural force of his tragic allegory "by drawing on the additional force of Christian symbolism."

Hemingway often resorted to the use of Christian symbols, but it is in the story "The Old Man and the Sea" that this side of his work appears most clearly. In the drama of Santiago, there are parallels with the suffering Christ. For example, the three days spent by the Old Man on the high seas are reminiscent of the three days when Christ was dead before his resurrection. The fish is one of the traditional symbols of Christianity, and the name Santiago is the name of one of the apostles. Santiago is a holy man. The work "The Old Man and the Sea" is about how Santiago approaches the path that leads to "holiness".

Only old people can ask the sea, silently calling it "la mar", feminine, wait for a miracle and not be surprised at failures. The sea is a symbol of life, life itself.

He constantly thought of the sea as a woman who gives great alms or refuses them, and if she allows herself rash or unkind deeds, what can you do, such is her nature.

The old man can no longer fight the sea himself, like those who consider the sea a man and an enemy. He no longer has the strength. Therefore, he considers the sea a mother (mother goddess, giving birth and killing), a woman, and asks her for protection, help. The pride of the old man does not allow him to ask the boy, but only from her, from the mother, from the woman. And the fact that he is asking means that humility has already begun to come to him. But pride still remained in his soul - pride in his strength, will, endurance. His fishing lines hang straighter than others, he does not hesitate to drink fish oil, he is embarrassed to show the boy his poverty, he tries to be great, like DiMaggio. An appeal to the great baseball player DiMaggio serves both for the Old Man and for the boy as a model of a real man. Santiago identifies himself with him when he wants to prove "what a person is capable of and what he can endure." He also gained faith. Faith is a key concept in The Old Man and the Sea.

Although he did not read the Lord's Prayer a hundred times within the narrative, he acquired that helplessness that is necessary for faith. He realized that it was necessary to believe not in himself (it was important for him that the boy believed in him, in him). What you need not to "buy" happiness from the pagan sea, from the pagan goldfish, but something else.

It was faith that the old man acquired, and along with faith, humility.

Hemingway's parable of the old man and the sea is also about humility and fortitude.

The word "humility" appears more than once in the text. It says that the old man does not remember when humility came to him. In the process of struggle, humility only began to come to him. The meaning of the text is a description of how humility came to the old man. This parable is about the humility of old age.

The critic talks about the enduring significance of Hemingway's work and about those attempts to create a critical canon by the method of "cutting off the unnecessary", when each critic is tempted to discriminate and cut a little more from the writer's work than the rest. And is it by chance that in the story the old man dreams of seeing noble lions? He wants to see them in a dream, not in a harsh reality full of hard physical labor, but in an area inaccessible to dirty human thoughts. Shades of meaning are in the little things. Hemingway's old man dreamed of lions. Why? First, the lion is a symbol of happiness. This is a harmonious strong animal. Secondly, the lion is a symbol of strength. Thirdly, the lion is one of the four animal symbols in the Apocalypse.

The main motive that runs through the entire work is the motive of stubborn faith in tomorrow, faith in a successful catch, despite the fact that the previous eighty-four days of fishing trips were unsuccessful.

Against this background, a hut, a bed, clothes - everything could wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow you must be lucky, and a big fish will definitely be caught. And there and gear and food - everything will be.

Calm, colorful dreams about African golden and white shores, the lions of their splendor show strength of mind, the desire to go forward, to believe and warm oneself with this confidence in the obligatory good fishing. Dreams about Africa serve the development of the lyrical plot, help to penetrate into the inner world of the hero.

Toward the end of the story, symbolic words appear that can be considered the life credo of a fisherman or a whole group of people like him. These are words expressed in a tenacious, well-aimed formula "- Fight," he said, "fight until I die. ", which are the apotheosis, a kind of summed up the old man's whole life.

In The Old Man and the Sea, man's struggle with nature reveals enormous reserves of will, courage, and dignity of the individual. W. Faulkner wrote about this work: "This time he found God, the Creator. Until now, his men and women have created themselves, sculpted themselves from their own clay; defeated each other, suffered defeat from each other in order to prove to themselves what they are resilient This time he wrote about pity - about something that created them all: an old man who was supposed to catch a fish and then lose it, a fish that was supposed to be his prey and then abyss, sharks that should were to take it away from the old man."

E. Halliday (an American critic) argued that Hemingway used in his work not symbols, but "symbols of associations." The writer thoughtfully selected facts and details, creating metaphors that had a much broader meaning than the direct meaning of the image.

Hemingway himself, when asked about symbols, answered: “Obviously, there are symbols, since critics only do what they find. Sorry, but I can’t stand talking about them and don’t like being asked about them. Write books and stories and without any explanation is quite difficult. Besides, it means taking bread from specialists ... Read what I write and do not look for anything but your own pleasure. And if you need anything else - find it, it will be your contribution to what you read ".

And again: "There has never been a good book that would have arisen from a pre-made symbol, baked into a book, like raisins into a sweet bun ... I tried to give a real old man and a real boy, a real sea and real fish and real sharks. And, if I this has been done quite well and truthfully, they are, of course, subject to different interpretations."

So, on the advice of the master, let's try to "contribute to what we read" and consider the symbols found in the work, based on the book by Vovk O.V. "Encyclopedia of signs and symbols". We have to consider such mythologems as the star, the sun, the moon, the sail, the water, and the fish.

Consider the concept of water in myth. Water is one of the central elements of the universe. In a variety of mythologies, water is the beginning, the initial state of all things, the equivalent of primeval chaos. Water is the agent, environment and principle of universal conception and generation, it is the equivalent of all the vital "juices" of a person. The meaning of water for the act of washing, which returns a person to the original purity, correlates with the motive of water as the first principle.

The concept of "fish" has the same meaning. In the myths about the flood, the Fish acts as a savior of life - the Aztecs, Indians, a symbol of a quiet life among the Sumerians, a means of sustaining life - among the Japanese. The use of fish (for example, trout) in the treatment of various diseases (including infertility) testifies to the wide spread of the cult of Fish in Transcaucasia. Fish can also act as an equivalent of the world of the dead, the lower world (in order to be resurrected, one must visit it). The "fish" metaphor of Jesus Christ is not accidental. The Greek word "fish" was deciphered as an abbreviation of the Greek formula "Jesus Christ, God's son, savior". Fish - as a symbol of faith, purity, the Virgin Mary, as well as baptism, communion, where it is replaced bread and wine, in the same row is the motif of saturation with fish and loaves.So, the fish can symbolize fertility, fertility, abundance, wisdom.

The description of sharks devouring the caught fish is interpreted as the inexorability and supreme power of nature in the story.

It is also important that, having caught a fish, the old man tears off a piece of the fish in order to purify himself, to take shape, to be reborn. Fish is not food, rather it is a symbol of purity for him.

There is a reflection of Santiago in the story, where he appeals to the stars, the sun and the moon, inwardly rejoicing that he "does not have to kill" the heavenly bodies. In accordance with the encyclopedia of symbols, the star "became the spokesman of dreams and hopes, striving for high ideals", in mythology the stars were considered animated beings, hence the allegedly not entirely clear words of the fisherman; on the one hand, he perceives the stars as living beings, on the other (more profound and symbolic) he rejoices that a person does not have to kill his dreams, aspirations and ideals.

The sun rightfully occupies the first place among natural symbols, as it gives life to everything that exists on earth. All the most important and significant was associated with many peoples of the world with the sun. "The symbolism of the sun is usually considered from two points of view. As a source of heat, the sun symbolizes vitality, divine creative energy, eternal youth and passion, and as a source of light, it represents truth, knowledge and intelligence." In the mythology of most peoples of the Earth, the Sun and the Moon were considered a celestial couple, the personification of the feminine and masculine, respectively. The moon is one of the most important natural symbols, whimsically combining negative and positive properties. "The moon symbolized abundance, rebirth, immortality, occult power, intuition, chastity, but also impermanence, volatility and icy indifference." Traditional interpretations of the moon as a symbol, we think, are not an accurate expression of the writer's mindset; here the interpretation of the moon as a symbol of poetry, poetic muse, voluptuous bliss of romantic imagination and romance itself in particular is much more appropriate. The old man builds the sun, moon and stars in one semantic row or on a thin symbolic plane truth, knowledge, intellect - a poetic vision of the world, idealization - dreams, striving for high ideals. Thus, the resulting triad speaks of what Hemingway considers the most important for a person, which a person should never and should never "kill in himself" in a gray everyday routine.

The sail is a symbol of striving into the unknown, and therefore of will and romance, but at the very beginning of the work, the old man’s sail appears before us old and covered with burlap patches and looks like the banner of a broken regiment. And following I. Kashkin, we note that a battered, old sail that has served its purpose symbolizes the futility of the old man's struggle, its initial doom to failure.

2.2 The image of a man-wrestler in Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea"

Hemingway's characters are more antiheroes than heroes. This is not about people who dazzle with their physical or moral strength and resilience, but rather about nihilists with no clear spiritual convictions, who seek refuge in the emotions bestowed by the present in order to escape from themselves. And although they preach a cult of masculinity and seem, at first glance, extroverts, they often doubt their courage.

The researchers called Santiago a completely new hero. And it is. What is the novelty of the image of Santiago in comparison with the previous heroes of Hemingway?

Firstly, and most importantly, the previous characters suffered from internal reflection, from lack of agreement with themselves, from loneliness. Old Santiago belongs to the natural world. His kinship with the sea is already evident in his appearance: his cheeks "were covered with brown spots of harmless skin cancer, which is caused by the sun's rays reflected by the surface of the tropical sea." Nominally, it is affirmed in the eyes: "everything he had was old, except for his eyes, and his eyes were like the color of the sea, the cheerful eyes of a man who does not give up." So on the very first page her leitmotif appears - a person who does not give up. And this is the second difference between the image of Santiago.

He knows exactly why he was born: "to become a fisherman, as a fish is born to become a fish."

The third difference is in the quality of the world to which Santiago belongs. This world is different. In it, too, there is a struggle for existence, there is cruelty and murder. But in this world the harmony of the eternal cycle of nature reigns, every living being in it acts in accordance with the laws of nature and its purpose. Even sharks have their place in it.

"This, - as B. Gribanov notes, - is a single structure, full of meaning, giving emotional rewards to creatures who live skillfully and courageously in it, although it charges them a heavy fee." Life in this world is also a tragedy, but this life has lost its gloominess and randomness, and has acquired its own meaning and regularity. "Man and nature exist in this world in struggle and harmony, and this makes it possible for true heroism to manifest."

The closed nature of the eternal cycle of nature, despite the general struggle for existence, gives rise to a sense of mutual respect and sympathy in the hunter and his victim. "Fish, I love and respect you very much," the old man tells her. "But I will kill you before evening comes." "The fish is also my friend." During the whole hunt, he conducts a sincere conversation with the fish, because he sees in a beautiful, powerful fish not an enemy, but an equal rival, feeling a blood connection between her and himself. The old man perceives this fish as part of the universe.

In other places, Santiago himself poeticizes his opponent - the long-awaited big fish, which is dearer to him than his brother, which he equates to distant friends - "my sisters the stars", to the moon, to the sun, "and it's good that we don't have to kill the sun, the moon and the stars. It is enough that we extort food from the sea and kill our fellow fish."

Finally, the image of the protagonist is not as simple as it seems at first. Compared to the former simple people, Santiago is a complex figure. He is a thinking old man, or, by his own definition, "an old man is not like the others." Hemingway endows him with the ability to talk about many things, poeticizes his memories. The old man is dreaming of the shores of Africa, playing lion cubs. A simple person turns out to be far from being so simple. He has his own established views on life, on work, on duty, a kind of poetic worldview, deep feelings and feelings. "He gathered all his pain, and all the rest of his strength, and all his long-lost pride, and threw them into a duel with the agony that the fish endured."

Critic A. Elyashevich compares the idea of ​​the story "The Old Man and the Sea" with Hemingway's early story "The Undefeated", where the image of a lonely man, beaten by life, but not broken, arose. In the later story, the writer was able to give this image "a deep, generalizing meaning, make it more significant, large-scale." On the whole, according to A. Elyashevich, "The Old Man and the Sea" is a book about the eternal and unequal duel between Man and Life. A person is lonely and isolated from history and social ties, but at the same time he is earthly and individually unique, and life is interpreted by the critic as fate, fate, as a manifestation of the elemental forces of nature, but at the same time it is shown in all its fullness of realistic detail. According to the literary critic, the story of the old man and the sea, for all its tragedy, is devoid of moods of melancholy and hopelessness. Its main goal is to show "what a person is capable of and what he can endure." The defeat of the old man, ultimately, turns into his moral victory, the victory of the human spirit over the vicissitudes of fate.

From the beginning to the end of the book, Santiago has a conversation with the fish and with himself. He, like the author, thinks about courage, about skill. About your business. Once upon a time, in a competition with a black man, everyone around made bets for the whole day, intrigued, cheered up his opponent. But he thought only of one thing - to endure, to win. And he was convinced then that if he really wants to, he will defeat any opponent.

The figure of a simple old man - the Cuban Santiago - is a generalized image in his own way of a great man of undiscovered opportunities, who in other circumstances would have shown "what a person is capable of", would have coped with other tasks.

As I. Kashkin notes, the book "opens with the motive of defeat."

For the fisherman Santiago came a losing streak. Evidence of this is the very old age of Santiago, when his mind is clouded with haze, and he no longer has dreams about women or about fights; then - an old patched burlap sail as a flag of eternal defeat even before the start of the struggle; and the skeleton of a large fish gnawed by sharks at the end, and those moments in the midst of the struggle, when Santiago seems to be ready to admit the futility of single combat. And in the end, he admits: "They defeated me, Manolin. They defeated me."

The motives for the defeat are visible even in the minutes of the struggle itself. So, I. Kashkin notes as them: “Santiago turns to prayer for help, although, in essence, he does not believe in its power. He exalts his opponent, the “big fish”, to some semi-mystical Melville level: my brother and my victim. "Try to endure suffering like a man," he tells himself, "or like a fish." He admits the thought that he can't cope with a fish: "Well, kill me. It doesn't matter to me who kills whom." And in this a shadow of inner defeat flickers. "N. Anastasyev sees in this a manifestation of fatalism unusual for Hemingway, followed by the exaltation of the very “big fish” that can finish him off by the old man.

Santiago knows everything about fishing, as Hemingway knew everything about it, having lived in Cuba for many years and became a recognized champion in hunting big fish. The whole story of how the old man manages to catch a huge fish, how he fights with her a long, exhausting fight, how he defeats her, but, in turn, is defeated in the fight against sharks that eat his prey, is written with the greatest, to the subtleties , knowledge of the dangerous and difficult profession of a fisherman.

The sea appears in the story almost like a living being. “Other fishermen, younger, spoke of the sea as space, as a rival, sometimes even as an enemy. The old man constantly thought of the sea as a woman who gives great favors or refuses them, and if she allows herself rash or bad deeds - what can you do, such is her nature.

The courage of the old man is extremely natural - it does not have the affectation of a matador playing a deadly game in front of an audience, or the satiety of a rich man who is looking for thrills while hunting in Africa (the story "The Short Happiness of Francis Macomber"). The old man knows that his courage and stamina, which are an indispensable quality of people in his profession, he has already proved thousands of times. “Well, so what?” he says to himself. “Now we have to prove it again. Each time the count starts again: therefore, when he did something, he never remembered the past.”

The plot situation in the story "The Old Man and the Sea" develops tragically - the old man, in fact, is defeated in an unequal battle with sharks and loses his prey, which he got at such a high price - but the reader does not have any feeling of hopelessness and doom, the tone of the story is in supremely optimistic. And when the old man says the words that embody the main idea of ​​the story - "Man is not created to suffer defeat. Man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated," then this is by no means a repetition of the idea of ​​the old story "Undefeated". Now this is not a question of the professional honor of an athlete, but a problem of the dignity of a Person.

This is not the first time the old man has shown his steadfastness and, if I may say so, a certain stubbornness. A striking example illustrating his attitude to life's difficulties, and specifically to the struggle for survival (or respect, or glory, or ...) is the episode of his duel with a hefty big man - a black man. “When the sun went down, the old man, to cheer himself up, began to recall how one day in a Casablanca tavern he competed in strength with a mighty Negro from Cienfuegos, the strongest man in the port. They sat for a whole day against each other, resting their elbows on a line drawn in chalk on table, arms unbent, palms tightly clasped, each attempting to bend the other's arm to the table, bets were made all around, people were going in and out of a room dimly lit by kerosene lamps, and he did not take his eyes off the negro's arm and elbow and his face "After the first eight hours had passed, the judges began to change every four hours to sleep. Both opponents bled from under the nails, and they all looked into each other's eyes, and at the hand, and at the elbow. The people who bet They went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the walls and waited to see how it would turn out.The wooden walls were painted bright blue and the lamps cast shadows on them. and the wind swayed the lamps.

The advantage shifted from one to the other all night long; the negro was given rum and lit cigarettes for him. After drinking the rum, the negro made a desperate effort, and once he managed to bend the arm of the old man - who was not an old man then, but was called Santiago El Campeon - almost three inches. But the old man straightened his arm again. After that, he no longer doubted that he would defeat the Negro, who was a good guy and a big strong man. And at dawn, when people began to demand that the judge declare a draw, and he only shrugged his shoulders, the old man suddenly strained his strength and began to bend the negro's hand lower and lower until it lay on the table. The fight began on Sunday morning and ended on Monday morning. Many of the bettors demanded a tie because it was time for them to go to work in the port, where they loaded coal for the Havana Coal Company or sacks of sugar. If not for this, everyone would want to bring the competition to the end. But the old man won, and won before the movers had to go to work."

This event is, of course, a key one. It shows the attitude towards the life of an old fisherman. He shows inhuman stamina, even Andersen's tin soldier could not oppose this courage. Hemingway not in vain draws our attention to the fact that people who watched the fight insist on a draw, they are tired, they cannot waste so much precious time, they, in fact, do not care who wins or loses. But after all, these people are Cuban fishermen, accustomed from childhood to hard, backbreaking, physical labor, their daily duty is to challenge the elements, fight Nature for survival, you will not surprise such people with anything.

With the episode described above, Hemingway, as it were, shows the exclusivity of his hero, he puts him above the rest of the workers of the sea, he singles out the old man from the general mass. Their unparalleled resilience and courage is, by and large, nothing compared to the old man's super-courage. But after all, Santiago is in dire need, why does the author, endowing him with such high qualities, put his hero in such cramped circumstances? Probably because, we will answer, that the inner nobility of the fisherman is devoid of an admixture of poisonous self-interest, greed, ambition and simply a thirst for profit, which makes him an exceptional hero.

Perhaps it is fair to say that "The Old Man and the Sea" is a hymn to the courage and resilience of a person: the Cuban fisherman, who was the prototype of the hero of Ernest Hemingway's famous book "The Old Man and the Sea", died at the age of 104 years. And Hemingway described him this way: "Everything he had was old, except for his eyes, and his eyes were like the color of the sea, the cheerful eyes of a man who does not give up."

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the results of the research undertaken, and the list of references gives a bibliographic description of the sources cited in the work.

Hemingway received wide recognition not only for his novels and numerous stories, but also for a life full of adventures and surprises. It was he who turned out to be the first writer who merged European and American novelistic traditions and elevated the art of storytelling in US literature.

The story "The Old Man and the Sea" is marked by the high and humane wisdom of the writer. It embodied that genuine humanistic ideal that Hemingway was looking for throughout his entire literary career. This path was marked by quests, delusions, through which many representatives of the creative intelligentsia of the West passed. As an honest artist, as a realist writer, as a contemporary of the 20th century, Hemingway sought his own answers to the main questions of the century - as he understood them - and came to this conclusion - Man cannot be defeated.

The book tells about the heroic and doomed opposition to the forces of nature, about a man who is alone in a world where he can only rely on his own perseverance, faced with the eternal injustice of fate. The allegorical narrative of an old fisherman fighting sharks that have torn to pieces a huge fish he caught is marked by features most characteristic of Hemingway as an artist: dislike for intellectual sophistication, commitment to situations in which moral values ​​are clearly manifested, to a stingy psychological picture.

The poeticization of physical labor, the affirmation of the unity of man and nature, the uniqueness of the personality of the "little man", the general humanistic sound, the complexity of the idea and the refinement of the form - all this makes the story so popular, relevant and topical in our time.

In our study, we tried to ignore the Procrustean bed of literary works about the writer and took a somewhat broader look at the problem of perseverance in the work, noting the duality, duality of the theme of perseverance, we identified and examined the plan of Santiago's courage, for which courage is natural, natural and filled with true nobility, and the plan the heroic behavior of the fish itself, the marlin, whose instincts do not allow her to give up without a stubborn fight, just like that.

So, we see that the courage of the fisherman is not superficial, it comes from the very depths of the heart, it is true, natural, natural; and the old man's rival, the fish, desperately, with all his might, fights for his life to the very end. It was fate that appointed them to fight so fiercely, the death of one will give life to the other. This chain has existed for many, many centuries, since a man killed his first animal while hunting, and this connection cannot be broken, it will exist forever, or, in any case, until one fighter destroys another; and it is not a fact that we will emerge victorious from this centuries-old struggle.

I would like to finish the analysis with the words of W. Faulkner, who, having no reason to exaggerate the significance of Hemingway's work, wrote about The Old Man: "Time will probably show that this is the best work of any of us. I mean him (Hemingway) and my contemporaries."

The Sea Odyssey of Santiago was not the last work of E. Hemingway, which was published before the death of the author, but it can rightfully be considered the writer's swan song.

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The story "The Old Man and the Sea" was completed by Hemingway in 1951. In it, the writer tried to convey to readers all his life and literary experience. Hemingway created the story for a long time, painstakingly writing out each episode, each reflection and observation of his largely lyrical hero. Then he shared what he had written with his wife Mary, and only by goosebumps on her skin did he understand how good the passage he had made was. According to the writer himself, the story "The Old Man and the Sea" could well become a great novel, with many characters (mainly fishermen) and storylines. However, all this was already in the literature before him. Hemingway, on the other hand, wanted to create something different: a story-parable, a story-symbol, a story-life.

At the level of an artistic idea, "The Old Man and the Sea" is closely connected with Psalm 103 of David, which glorifies God as the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all creatures that inhabit our planet. Biblical reminiscences can be traced in the story and in the images of the main characters (the boy is named Manolin - a diminutive shortening of Emmanuel, one of the names of Jesus Christ; the old man's name is Santiago - just like St. James, and the Old Testament James, who challenged God himself ), and in the old man's reasoning about life, man, sins, and in his reading of the main Christian prayers - "Our Father" and "Theotokos".

The artistic problematics of the story is to show the inner strength of a person and his ability not only to realize the beauty and grandeur of the world around him, but also his place in it. The vast ocean into which the old man goes is a symbolic image of both our material space and the spiritual life of man. The huge fish with which the fisherman fights has a double symbolic character: on the one hand, it is a collective image of all the fish that Santiago once caught, the image of the work destined for him by God, on the other, it is the image of the Creator himself, who lives in each of his creations, who died for the sake of people, resurrected and living in the souls of believers.

The old man believes that he is far from religion, but at a difficult moment of fishing, he reads prayers and promises to read more if the Blessed Virgin makes the fish die. Santiago's reasoning about life is simple and unsophisticated. He looks like this himself: old, emaciated, content with little - simple food, a poor hut, a bed filled with newspapers.

Day after day, exhausting the big fish in the ocean, the old man does not think about how painful or hard it is for him from the strings cutting his arms and back. No. He is trying to save his strength for the decisive battle. He catches tuna and flying fish in the sea and eats them raw, even though he doesn't feel hungry. He forces himself to sleep to gain strength. He uses all means at hand to fight the sharks that encroach on his fish. And he talks, evaluates, remembers. Constantly. Including with fish - both living and dead.

When a mutilated carcass remains from the sea beauty, the old man becomes uneasy. He doesn't know how to deal with fish. Having killed one of the most beautiful creatures of this world, Santiago justifies his act by saying that the fish will saturate him and other people. Prey torn apart by sharks loses this simple, worldly meaning. The old man apologizes to the fish for how things turned out so badly.

Unlike many classic literary works, The Old Man and the Sea is not critical of anything. Hemingway does not consider himself entitled to judge others. The main goal of the writer is to show how our world works, in which a fisherman is born a fisherman, and a fish is a fish. They are not enemies to each other, they are friends, but the meaning of a fisherman's life is to kill fish, and, alas, it is impossible otherwise.

Every time the old man encounters marine life, he shows himself to be a person who loves, pities and respects every creature of God. He worries about birds that find it hard to get their own food, enjoys the love games of guinea pigs, feels sympathy for the marlin, who lost his girlfriend through his fault. The old man treats the big fish with deep respect. He recognizes in her a worthy opponent who can win in a decisive battle.

The old man meets his failures with truly Christian humility. He does not complain, does not grumble, he silently does his job, and when a little talkativeness attacks him, he orders himself in time to return to reality and get down to business. Having lost his catch in an unequal battle with sharks, the old man feels defeated, but this feeling fills his soul with incredible lightness.

Who defeated you, old man? - he asks himself and immediately gives the answer. - Nobody. I just went too far out to sea. In this simple reasoning, one can see the unbending will and real worldly wisdom of a person who has known the whole immensity of the world around him and his place in it, a place, though small, but honorable.

The first three associations when we hear the name Hemingway: wine, gun, "male prose." The last definition is very important, because now “boyish prose” is in use, and so Ernest Hemingway is the author of precisely “male” prose. A man is always a man, even in old age. This is what the essay of the American classic “The Old Man and the Sea” tells us about. His analysis hurries with all possible agility to appear before the bright eyes of the reader of this article.

Plot

The story of old man Santiago and his struggle with a huge fish.

Small village in Cuba. The elderly fisherman was no longer lucky, for almost three months he did not know the sweet feeling of satisfaction from the caught prey. The boy Manolin went with him halfway through the disappointment. Then the parents informed the younger partner that Santiago was no longer friends with fortune and it was better for their son to look for another company for trips to the sea. Besides, you have to feed your family. The boy gave in to the wishes of his parents, although he himself did not want to leave the old fisherman, he really liked him.

And then the day came on which, as the old man felt, everything should change. And indeed, it happened: Santiago managed to catch a huge fish on a hook. The man and the fish fought for several days, and when the prey was defeated, the old man dragged it home, tying it to the boat. But while they were fighting, the boat was carried far out to sea.

On the way home, the old man was already counting the profits from the sale of fish in his mind, when he suddenly spotted shark fins on the surface of the water.

He repulsed the attack of the first shark, but when the sea animals attacked in a flock, the fisherman could no longer cope. The predators left the boat alone only after they almost completely ate the fisherman's "reward" (only a trophy remained from the fish caught by an elderly man - a huge skeleton).

The old man did not bring a catch to his village, but he proved his worth as a fisherman. Santiago, of course, was upset and even cried. The first one on the shore was met by his faithful companion, Manolin, who was torn away from the old man only by a parental order and the need to get food for his family. He consoled the old man and said that he would never leave him again and would learn a lot from him and together they would catch many more fish.

We hope that the retelling offered here did not seem incomplete to the reader, and if he suddenly asks: “Why is the content of the work (“The Old Man and the Sea”) short?” “Analysis also requires space, dear reader,” we will answer him.

For such a not too intricate story, Ernest Hemingway received in 1953 and in 1954 the Nobel Prize in Literature, which marked all the writer's work.

Let the reader not be angry for the long prelude to the study, but without the plot of the story called "The Old Man and the Sea" it is difficult to carry out an analysis, because it must be based on the facts stated at least concisely.

Why is the story called "The Old Man and the Sea"?

Hemingway is a wonderful writer. He was able to write a story in such a way that he delighted specialists and more than one generation of readers, and in the work the writer raised the eternal theme of man and the elements. "The Old Man and the Sea" (the analysis carried out in this article confirms this conclusion) is a story primarily about the struggle of a decrepit, old man and an eternally young, strong and powerful element. In the story, not only fish is important, but also nature in general. It is with her that a person fights and does not lose in this fight.

Why is the old man chosen as the main character?

The study of the book "The Old Man and the Sea" (analysis of it) suggests an answer to this, in general, an obvious question.

If the fisherman were young, the story would not be so dramatic, it would be an action movie, like, for example, "To have and not to have" by the same author. In the laureate work, Hemingway managed to squeeze out of the reader a mean male tear (or uncontrollable and loud female sobs) about the sad fate of the old sea wolf.

Hemingway's special techniques that immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the story

There is no exciting development in the book of the American classic. There is almost no dynamics in the work, but it is saturated with internal drama. Some may think Hemingway's storytelling is boring, but that's not the case at all. If the writer did not pay so much attention to detail and did not paint in such detail the torment of the old man at sea, then the reader would not be able to fully feel the suffering of the sailor with his own gut. In other words, if it were not for this “viscosity and stickiness” of the text, then “The Old Man and the Sea” (an analysis of the work proves this) would not have been such a penetrating work.

Old man Santiago and boy Manolin - a story of friendship between two generations

In addition to the main theme in the book written by Ernest Hemingway, there are additional reasons for reflection. One of them is the friendship of an old man and a boy. How touchingly Manolin worries about Santiago, how he encourages him during failures. There is an opinion that old people and children get along so well because some recently emerged from oblivion, while others will soon get there. This common Motherland, where some people come from and others are about to leave, brings them together on an unconscious-intuitive level.

If we talk specifically about the two heroes, it seems that the boy simply feels that the old man is a master of his craft, a seasoned sailor. Manolin probably believes that he really has a lot to learn, and while he is alive, this opportunity should not be missed.

It remains for us in the story "The Old Man and the Sea" (the analysis of the work is almost finished) to consider only the question of discrimination. He hardly bothered Ernest Hemingway when he wrote a masterpiece, very topical at the present time, but the story provides food for thought in this direction.

Discrimination and "Old Man..."

At all times, it was customary to treat children, the elderly and the disabled with condescension: some can do little else, others are no longer suitable for something serious, and still others are placed outside the usual framework by nature itself.

But Ernest Hemingway did not think so at all. “The Old Man and the Sea” (the analysis given in the article confirms this) says that all people written off by society still have hope for salvation and fulfillment. And children and old people can even unite in an excellent team that can blow the nose of many.

The experience and old age of the fisherman in the story of the American classic are presented as advantages. Indeed, imagine if the fisherman were young and full of energy, then he would most likely not have survived the fight with the fish and would have fallen unconscious. Young - yes, old - no, never!

Ernest Hemingway himself thought a lot about the heroic figure of the fisherman. "The Old Man and the Sea" (analysis confirms this) is a monument to human courage.

"Man can be destroyed, but not defeated"

For an old man, this is not just a job. For him, fighting at sea is a way to prove to himself and to society that he is still in the cage, which means that he does not have the right to “turn off” due to hunger and thirst, the sun and even numbness of the limbs, and even more so to die.

Yes, the sailor did not bring his fish this time, but he still accomplished the feat. And we firmly believe that some other old man (not necessarily a conqueror of the sea) will certainly have the opportunity to get even with fate as well as his brother, and create something outstanding.