The Old Man and the Sea 549that seems to keep Santiago alive throughout the
novel, even when he is alone in his skiff. The old
man’s life also depends on the sea. This deep con-
nection becomes literal when he hooks his great fish.
If the old man shares a tempered optimism with the
boy, he shares a wild desperation with the fish, as
they pull each other through the Gulf Stream and
toward death. When he returns to the island, both
man and marlin have been torn to pieces. Still, San-
tiago, with the support of Manolin, has triumphed
over the sea, loneliness, and even death.
The Old Man and the Sea presents themes such
as nature, isolation, and stages of life, in mul-
tifaceted and complex ways, making the simplicity
of the novel’s plot and language as deceptive as the
tranquil surface of the sea.
Japhet Johnstone
iSolation in The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea
paints an ominous picture of isolation. The old
man, Santiago, lives a solitary life in a shack, with
a dilapidated skiff for his livelihood and one friend,
the boy Manolin, to keep him company. His journey
at sea isolates him even more, as he goes “beyond
all people” in search of a great fish. Far out in his
boat isolation also creeps into the old man’s dreams.
However, The Old Man and the Sea does not create
an image of total isolation. The old man is never
completely alone, and the bleak images of isolation
make his bonds of kinship with the world stand out
all the brighter.
The old man’s life on the island is isolated both
socially and economically from the other fishermen
and villagers. Foremost, he has no family. A photo-
graph of his deceased wife serves as a reminder of
this loss, but he keeps it under a clean shirt because
the sight of the photograph makes him too lonely.
Without a family the old man seems all the more
lonesome in contrast to Manolin. The boy’s family
dictates his behavior and influences his opinions.
His family is a living part of his world, not some-
thing he can hide away. There is no such influence
over the old man’s decision-making, except maybe a
desire for economic ease. As a fisherman, he must
catch fish to make a living. Since at the beginning
of the story he has not caught a fish in 84 days, his
financial resources are lower than ever. He lights no
fire at night. He would have little to eat if the boy
did not bring him stew and rice. Moreover, his “bad
luck” makes him an object of ridicule and pity in the
village. In these abject conditions the old man has
nobody except for the boy, and he even leaves him
behind when he sets out to test his luck on his 85th
day at sea.
The old man isolates himself both physically and
geographically on his three-day fishing expedition.
He refuses to take the boy with him in his skiff.
All alone, even with his strong but old body, he
suffers from thirst, hunger, and fatigue. He regrets
not having the boy with him multiple times during
his voyage. Without the boy, drinking, eating, or
recuperating lost fishing-line all become Herculean
tasks for an old fisherman. With nobody by his side,
the old man finds himself in a dangerous position,
made more dangerous by his geographic isolation.
On his first day he sails out to where only the tops
of the island hills are visible; then when he hooks
his big catch he is dragged out to where no land is
visible at all. The old man reaches his most remote
point when he kills the marlin and stops the fish
from towing his boat farther out to sea. Without his
only friend and far from help, the old man’s isolation
nearly kills him.
Isolation also haunts the old man’s dreams.
When the old man finally allows himself to sleep
during his second night at sea, he has three dreams.
Between two dreams of companionship and plea-
sure is a dream of discomfort and cold. This harsh
dream resembles the old man’s life on the island: a
chilly, unpleasant night in a shack. The severity of
this image contrasts with the two other dreams. The
first dream is of a school of porpoises playing in the
ocean during mating season. The other dream is of a
lion that arrives on a beach alone and is then joined
by others. In this dream sequence, the old man’s life
of solitude appears all the more arduous juxtaposed
with these pleasant visions of animal communities.
Though for the old man community and belong-
ing seem but a dream, he is never completely iso-
lated. His poor outsider status on the island does
not mean that no one cares for him. Certainly, this
is most obvious in his relationship to the boy. But
upon his return to the island, it is clear that the vil-