"The Old Man and the Sea" Question 3

"The Old Man and the Sea" may be a short book, but in the few pages it does take up it can teach a lot if you look hard enough.  One of the main themes the book addresses is the theme of perseverance.  If I had to choose one word to sum up and describe this book as a whole, perseverance would be a pretty good selection in my opinion.  You start out with an old man who is a fisherman, but has not caught a single fish in eighty-four days.  Despite this huge gap in profit, the old man is still fishing every single day and never gives up.  All the fisherman in his town make fun of him, really everyone in the town makes fun of him.  This does not stop him, though, if anything it makes him stronger.  Next, the old man finally catches something!  Happy day!!  Side note:  It's a ginormous marlin that would probably give the Loch ness monster a run for its money.  This does not deter the fisher man, however.  If anything it causes him to be even more determined to reel the fish in and claim him as his own.  He struggles with the fish for three whole days.  He eventually reels the fish in and kills him.  He straps him to his boat and you would think this would be the end of it.  Nope!  Now he gets to fight off ferocious, blood-drunk sharks who want to devour his prized fish and do not really care what they have to do or what little fisherman they have to eat to do it!  Fun, right?  The old man would not really call it fun, I guess, but he does not appear to be all that phased by the situation.  You know.  Ginormous sharks come after me everyday, too, and they destroy every weapon I have and leave me with only a knife to defend myself with.  Yup.  Typical.  Ok, enough ranting.  My point!  The man perseveres!  He knows that there is pretty much no way he could possibly win this fight but he trudges on, well sails on, and does all in his power to protect himself, his fish, and his boat.  I believe that Ernest Hemingway really understood that even when people have everything going against them, we tend to fight and do all we can anyways.  The old man had everything going against him, but he fought and fought until the end.  Ernest Hemingway also portrays the relationship between the old man and the boy very well.  He shows how unconditionally the boy loves the old man despite the fact he has little to offer to the boy besides his knowledge.  He shows how humans are capable of great love built not just on material objects, but true friendship.  


Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.