The Old man and The Sea-Allegorical Interpretation,Ec-303,American Literature

Name                -     Bhatt. Dhara. J

Roll no:             -      02

M.A.Part-2       -     Sem-3

Paper                -      02, Ec-303

Paper name     -     American Literature             

      

Topic for Assignment  -

The old Man and the Sea – Allegorical

Interpretations

Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                  

The old Man and the Sea – Allegorical

Interpretations:-

* I *

®           A Parable:-

The Old Man and the Sea means more than it directly says.  According to several critics, for example, there is a close parallel between Santiago, his Marlin, and the sharks on the one hand, and Hemingway, his fiction, and the critics on the other.  According to Mark Scholar, this novel is not only a moral fable but a parable:

“It is an old man catching a fish, yes: but it is also a great artist in the act of  mastering his subject a fish, yes; but it is also a great artist in the act of mastering his subject, and more than that of actually writing about the struggle.  Nothing is more important than his craft, and it is beloved; but because it must be struggled with and mastered, it is also a foe I enemy to all self – indulgence, to all looseness of feeling, all laxness of style, all soft pomposities.”

®                        The realities in the Old Man and the Sea have to do with the craft of fishing.  But in all Hemingway’s best work, these particular occupations and professions are transposed into universal meanings:

                                “In the Old Man and the Sea, the mystique of fishing, with its limited triumphs and tragedies, is transposed into a universal condition of life, with its success and shame its morality and pride and potential loss of pride.”

* II *

®           Two Levels – Symbolism and Story-

v              Since the nineteen – forties there had been an increasing emphasis on Hemingway’s use of symbolism in his novels.  The view has been gathering strength that Hemingway’s work should be studies on the symbolic as rill as on the story level for a full appreciation of its art.  And of all Hemingway’s books.  The Old Man and the Sea demands must to be studies on both levels.

®           Based on the Great Abstractions-

v              The Old Man the Sea is a very good Hemingway story.  It is strictly and smoothly told; the conflict is resolved into a struggle between a man and a force which he scarcely understands, but which he knows that he must continue to strive against though knowing also that the struggle must end in his defect.  The defect is only apparent however for as in the short story called “The Undefeated,” it becomes increasingly clear throughout that it is not the victory or defect that matters but the struggle itself.

®           The use of Christen Symbols:-

v              Christian religious symbols and through the story there are so closely interwoven with the story as to suggest an allegorical intention on Hemingway’s part.  Santiago is a fisherman and he is also a teacher he was taught the boy not only how to fish that is, how to make a living – but how to behave as well, giving him the pride and humility necessary to a good life.  During the trials with the great fish and with the sharks his hands ache terribly; his back is lashed by the line; he gets an eye-piercing headache; and his chest shrinks and he spirits blood.

Hemingway Comments:

“There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just such a noise as a man might make involuntarily feeling the nail go through his hand and into the wood.”

v              All these details are obviously reminiscent of the Biblical account of chili’s crucifixion.

®           From Man to Fish and Back to Man:-

v              The Christian symbolism so evident here shifts from man to fish and back to man throughout the story.  This apparent can fusion is consistent not only within the Hemingway philosophy as an example of the sacrifice – sacrificed phenomenon but within formal Christianity as well, if the doctrine of the Trinity be accepted.

®           A Commentary of All his previous work:

v              The answer lies in the third level on which The Old Man and the Sea must be studies – as sort of allegorical Commentary by the author on all his previous work, by means of which it may be established that the religious overtones are not peculiar to this ook among Hemingway’s works, and that Hemingway has finally taken the decisive step what might be called his philosophy of manhood to the level of a religion.

®           Hemingway’s concern with Man as Man:-

v              Two aspects of Hemingway’s total work must be considered in order to clarify this conclusion, and to answer the questions concerning Hemingway’s Christianity.  The first of these aspects is Hemingway’s concern with man as man in relation to things of this world almost exclusively.  The other world, God, does not often enter into the thoughts, plans, or emotions of a Hemingway character.  Most of the characters are riling to admit God’s existence; they are at least unwilling to deny it.  But they will not admit his existence as an imminent being not ever benevolent or malevolent.

v             

®               The Rules for Living:-

v              The Second aspect of Hemingway’s total work is the rules which Hemingway has formulated for living and for the attalmment of manhood.  These rules are as rigid as can be found in any religion, and there is an elaborate procedure for the application of these rules.  Hemingway’s philosophy of manhood is a philosophy of action; a man in honest when acts honestly; he is humble when he acts humbly; he loves when he is loved or being loved.

®            The Rules for Living:-

v    It is not only in his treatment of the bull – fight that this second aspect of Hemingway’s total work is evident the rules, the ritual, the sacrifice dominant the details of the Old Man the Sea as they dominant those of the undefeated and the sun also rises.  We are told carefully, painstaking, how Santiago performs his function as a fisher man, how he prepares for the expected struggle:

          “Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current one bait was down forty fathoms.  The second was at seventy five and the third and forth rear down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty five fathoms.  Each bait hung head, down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish, tied and sewed solid and all projecting part of the hook, the curve and the point, was covered with frees sardines”.  

                                                                   (Pg. - 25)

v              We are told how he hooks the fish and secures the line, waiting suspense-fully for the fish to turn and swallow the bait, then waiting again until it has eaten the bait, well then striking.

                   “With all the strength of his arms, and the provide weight of his body”.

v              There times, setting the hook, then placing the line across his back and shoulders so that there will be something to give when the fish lunges, and the line will not break.  We are told specially in terms reminiscent of such descriptions of the bull – fight, how the hill is made.  The imminence of death for the sacrifice as well as for the scarified, and his total disregard of its possibility, are made clear of the climax of the struggle when Santiago thinks:

          “You are killing me, fish… come on and kill me.  I do not care who kills who.”

®                       The Religion of Man:-

v              Hemingway’s world view adds up to something more than a philosophy or an ethic; it adds up to what may be called a Religion of none.  Hemingway did not turn religious to write The Old Man and the Sea.  He had always been religious, though his religion was not of the orthodox, organized kind.  He celebrates, as he had always celebrated, the religion of Man.  The Old Man the Sea merely celebrates it more forcefully and convincingly than any previous work of Hemingway.  It is the final step in the celebration.  It is the book which elevates the philosophy to a religion by the use of allegory.  It is also the book which, by being an allegory of the total body of his work, enables us to see that work finally from the point of view of religion.

* III *

®           The original Magazine Article:-

v              The substance of the story was first pointed in the course of articles on deep sea fishing written for a periodical in 1936.  Hemingway related than an old fisherman had been picked up by another boat sixty miles from land with a huge marlin tied to the side of his skiff.  When his obscures found him, suffering from hunger and thirst, he as crying and half out of his mind.

®           Use of Symbolic Devices:-

v              Hemingway carried the incident in his head for years as one that he would some time develop into a full length story.  When he finally did deal with the incident, he brought to it all the new experiences which he had gained in the handling of the symbolic devices while writing his preceding novel.  Across the river and into the Trees.

®           A Parable on the theme of fighting the Good Fight:-

v              When the book was published, it was immediately recognized as a masterpiece.  On the purely literal level, this otory of an old fisherman’s single – handed fight with a huge fish in the Guld Stream north of Havana is a wonderfully written narrative, direct, intense, and spell binding.  But most readers found an extra quality in it, namely that the story was a parable on the theme of fighting the good fight.  It is in fact a beautifully, executed essay in Dantesaue allegory.  Every action and motif may be interpreted allegorically, and the literal and symbolic meanings operate continuously and consistently.

®           A Double Allegory:-

v              The Old Man and the Sea is a sustained and continuous performance in the field of symbolism Hemingway himself said of this book:

                   “I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks.  But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things.”

v              It is possible to interpret the book as a double allegory, of the nature of man’s struggle with life, and of the artist’s struggle with his art.  Strangely enough, Hemingway never wrote more significantly of himself than in this most externalized of all his stories; line sati Santiago determining to justify his reputation as a skilled fisherman:

          “The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing.  Now he was proving it again.  Each time was a new and he never thought about the post when he was doing it.”

(Pg. 58)

v              These words about satiago are fully applicable to Hemingway himself as a writer.

®           Undertones of Christian Scriptures:-

v              The simple prose in which the story is written the story is written has the flavor of the struggle of the bible.  There are other subtle undertones of the Christian scriptures, as for instance, in Santiago’s almost Franciscan communion with the fish and the birds of the Gulf Stream and in the similarity between Santiago’s voyage and the episode pertaining to Ulysses in Dantle’s Inferno.  In Dante the voyage of Ulysses ends in ship break, and the episode is usually interpreted as symbolizing the disaster of a thirst for scientific knowledge uncontrolled by humans and religious feeling.  Santiago also spls out beyond his proper limit, and his voyage too ends in material disaster. “Half – fish” he says.

          “Fish that you were I am sorry that I went too far out.  I ruined us both.”

®           A Double Allegory:

v              But Hemingway shapes his parable towards a different end:

          “But man is not made for, defect,” Santiago said.  “A man can destroy but not defeated.”

          “It is silly not to hope, he thought.  “Beside I believe it is a sin.”

                                      (Pg. 93 and 94)

v              Hemingway’s exploration of the vices and the heroism of humanity are guided by compassion and respect.  That is the reason why he gives different meaning to his parable.

®           Santiago’s Moral Victory:-

v              With his simple faith, his hope, and the charity of heart which binds him to his brother, the fish, Santiago is endowed with the chrolistian binds him to his brother, the fish, Santiago is endowed with the Cholistian virtues:

          He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility.  But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.

(Pg. 9)

v              When he meets disaster, he acquires a moral victory by his courage and revolution.  Nearly broken physically, but spiritual undefeated, he reaches the shore in safety.

®           Allegory of the writer’s struggle with His Material:-

v              But the book may also be read as on allegory of the artist’s struggle with his material.  It is possible to see Hemingway himself, with his line set accurately at various depts., sailing out into the guild stream to land his biggest final the technical failure of his preceding novel.  Across the river to think of only one thing.  That which I was born for.

®           Conclusion:-

v              A number of ingredients in their novelette have obvious significant in relation to Hemingway’s practice of his art as a novelist.  These ingredients include the fisherman’s respect for the giant marlin, his absolute struggle to master it his mounting confidence when he realizes that he is.

“Hearing how to do it.”?

v              His fight against the hungry sharks that seek to destroy the beauty and glory of his prize, and the undefeated courage and hope which even in failure will take him out to sea again.