550 Hemingway, Ernest
lagers do worry about the old man. They sent the
coast guard to search for him, and Manolin must tell
the proprietor of the Terrace to prohibit any curious
parties from disturbing the convalescent old man.
Even far out at sea, the old man knows that he is not
utterly alone. The kinship he feels toward the turtles,
porpoises, wind, and stars is accompanied by his
thought, “no man was ever alone on the sea.” From
the old man’s point of view he is surrounded by his
“brothers” of the air and of the water. Isolation thus
becomes merely a question of perspective.
Japhet Johnstone
nature in The Old Man and the Sea
The central conflict in The Old Man and the Sea is
between man and nature. The old man, Santiago,
challenges nature when he sets out alone in his skiff
to catch a great fish. At sea, he overcomes many
trials thanks to his determination and sharp mind.
These assets are quintessentially human and are the
old man’s best weapons against the unpredictable
and wild sea. The sea, and all of nature, can grant
both good luck and bad. It is a source of fortune and
beauty, and also a formidable enemy. But nature is
not just the sea, the stars, the marlin, and the sharks;
the old man is also a part of nature. His connection
to nature is most evident in his own body and his
relationship to the marlin. In the end, however, it is
the old man, and not the marlin, who makes it back
to shore alive. Even with no luck at all, Santiago’s
resolution is strong enough to bring him back home
alive, exhausted, and a hero.
Nature has not been kind to the old man. His
work as a fisherman has exposed him to nature’s
cruelty. The sun has marked his skin with cancer.
He knows firsthand the burning poison of jellyfish.
When the novel begins Santiago has gone 84 days
without catching a fish. On the 85th day he catches
a 1,500-pound marlin. Nature rewards the old
man with its bounty, but the size of its bounty is
almost too much for a single fisherman. When the
old man has finally lashed the marlin to his skiff,
nature sends its minions: sharks, who devour most
of the fish.
Santiago meets all of nature’s trials with deter-
mination. His years at sea have taught him many
“tricks” to counter nature’s whims. After almost
three months of bad luck, he still goes out to fish
daily. While the taut, heavy lines cut across his
back as Santiago waits for the marlin to surface,
he reminds himself that his advantage over the fish
is his intelligence and his unrelenting resolution.
Indeed, Santiago does not cut the line. Even when
black spots appear before his eyes and sharks attack
through the night, he commands himself to keep a
clear mind and does not relinquish his catch.
Though nature is often cruel to the old man, he
still loves it, especially the sea. Unlike some of the
young, brash fishermen, who think of the sea as “el
mar,” a hostile, masculine opponent, Santiago thinks
of the sea as “la mar.” The sea is a woman, and San-
tiago feels that, like a woman, the sea is naturally
wild. These things do not make him love the sea any
less. He also has an affinity for nature’s creatures. He
feels compassion for the fragile terns whose voices
are so delicate. He reveres turtles and hawksbills for
their elegance and porpoises for their playfulness.
Even the sharks are beautiful to Santiago, though
he hates them. Nothing in nature is without some
quality that the old man can admire.
The old man himself is one of nature’s creatures.
If the mind is human, then the body is natural. The
opening description of the old man compares his
scars to erosion in a desert, and it is as if nature had
written itself into the old man’s skin. The ebb and
flow of luck, which is nature’s domain, influences
his whole body. Bad luck strikes when his left hand
cramps. Suddenly, he has no power over it. In the
same way that the old man waits for the marlin to
surface, so too must he wait for his hand to uncramp.
But the old man’s link to nature is more than just his
own physical body.
Santiago’s most notable connection to nature is
the marlin caught on his hook. At each end of the
fishing line there is a figure who will not let go of its
life. As the old man shortens the line, the spiritual
distance between the two also shortens. The old
man wonders about the marlin and feels sorry for
him. He even wishes to be the fish at one point.
Both fish and man parallel each other in endurance
and strength. The marlin’s determination drags the
old man far out to sea. The old man’s brings them
back. And though the old man lives on, the parallel
between the two is not broken by the marlin’s death