The Old Man and the Sea is a 1952novella by the American authorErnest Hemingway. Written between December 1950 and February 1951, it was the last major fictional work Hemingway published during his lifetime. It tells the story of Santiago, an aging fisherman, and his long struggle to catch a giantmarlin. The novella was highly anticipated and was released to record sales; the initial critical reception was equally positive, but attitudes have varied significantly since then.
Hemingway began writingThe Old Man and the Sea inCuba during a tumultuous period in his life. His previous novelAcross the River and Into the Trees had met with negative reviews and, amid a breakdown in relations with his wifeMary, he had fallen in love with his museAdriana Ivancich. Having completed one book of a planned "sea trilogy", Hemingway began to write as an addendum a story about an old man and a marlin that had originally been told to him fifteen years earlier. He wrote up to a thousand words a day, completing the 26,531-word manuscript in six weeks.
Over the following year, Hemingway became increasingly convinced that the manuscript would stand on its own as a novella.Life magazine published the full novella in its September 1, 1952 issue. Hemingway's publisher,Scribner's, released their first edition a week later on the 8th. Thanks to favorable early reviews and word-of-mouth, popular anticipation was so high that both releases were heavily bootlegged. The magazine sold a record 5.3 million copies in two days, while Scribner's sold tens of thousands of copies. Translated into nine languages by the end of 1952,The Old Man and the Sea remained on theNew York Times bestseller list for six months. In 1953, it received thePulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was the only work explicitly mentioned when Hemingway was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Early reviews were positive, with many hailing what they saw as a return to form for Hemingway afterAcross the River's negative reception. The acclaim lessened over time, as literary critics began to think the initial reception overblown and over-enthusiastic. WhetherThe Old Man and the Sea is inferior or equal to Hemingway's other works has since been the subject of scholarly debate. Thematic analysis has focused onChristian imagery and symbolism, on the similarity of the novella's themes to its predecessors in the Hemingway canon, and on the character of the fisherman Santiago.
Santiago is an elderly fisherman who has not caught a fish in eighty-four days and is consideredsalao (very unlucky). Manolin, who had been trained by Santiago, has been forced by his parents to work on a different, luckier boat; Manolin still helps Santiago prepare his gear every morning and evening and brings him food. They talk about baseball andJoe DiMaggio, before the boy leaves and Santiago sleeps. He dreams of the sights and experiences of his youth.
On the eighty-fifth day of his streak, Santiago takes hisskiff out early, intending to row far into theGulf Stream. He catches nothing except a smallalbacore in the morning before hooking a hugemarlin. The fish is too heavy to haul in and begins to tow the skiff farther out to sea. Santiago holds on through the night, eating the albacore after sunrise. He sees the marlin for the first time—it is longer than the boat. Santiago increasingly appreciates the fish, showing respect and compassion towards his adversary. Sunset arrives for a second time and the fisherman manages some sleep; he is awoken by the fish panicking but manages to recover his equilibrium. On the third morning the marlin begins to circle. Almost delirious, Santiago draws the marlin in andharpoons it. He lashes the fish to his boat.
Amako shark smells blood in the water and takes a forty-pound bite of the marlin. Killing the shark but losing his harpoon, Santiago lashes his knife to an oar as a makeshift spear and kills three more sharks before the knife blade snaps. Cursing himself for going out too far, he apologises to the mutilated carcass of the marlin. He clubs two more sharks at sunset, but the marlin is now half-eaten. In the third night, the sharks come as a pack and leave only bones behind them. Santiago reaches shore and sleeps in his shack, leaving the skeleton tied to his skiff.
In the morning, Manolin cries when he sees Santiago's state. He brings coffee and sits with Santiago until he wakes. He insists on accompanying Santiago in the future. A fisherman measures the marlin at eighteen feet long, and a pair of tourists mistake its skeleton for that of a shark. Santiago goes back to sleep and dreams of lions on an African beach.
Hemingway at theFinca Vigía, hisCuban residence where he wroteThe Old Man and the Sea, in 1946.
The Old Man and the Sea was Ernest Hemingway's sixth major novel, followingThe Sun Also Rises (1926),A Farewell to Arms (1929),To Have and Have Not (1937),For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), andAcross the River and Into the Trees (1950).[1] Although the latter, published on September 7, sold 75,000 copies in its first month and remained on theNew York Times bestseller list for twenty-one weeks, critical reception was largely negative.[2] Amid a breakdown in marital relations with his wifeMary, Hemingway fell deeper into love with hismuse, the young ItalianAdriana Ivancich, who spent the winter of 1950–51 in the Hemingways' company inCuba. Suddenly finding himself able to write in early December, he completed one book (published in 1970 asIslands in the Stream) of a planned "sea trilogy", and, as his passion for Ivancich cooled, set about writing another story.[3]
In the mid-1930s, the Cuban guide Carlos Gutiérrez had related a story involving an old man and a giant marlin to Hemingway, who retold it inEsquire magazine in an essay titled "On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter".[4] According to Mary Cruz, this tale was likely first told by the Cuban authorRamón Meza y Suárez Inclán in 1891 and was consistently retold by fishermen over the next forty years.[5] Significant influence came from Hemingway's own experience with theGulf Stream, where he sailed for thousands of hours in the decades before writingThe Old Man and the Sea. He greatly enjoyed the sport ofbig-game fishing, participating in and winning several tournaments, and he also became an avid amateur naturalist, inviting luminaries such asHenry Weed Fowler andCharles Cadwalader to record and describe catches on his boat, thePilar. During a single month on board, aided by Hemingway's skill in fishing and sailing, theichthyologist Fowler learnt enough to "revise the classification of marlin for the whole North Atlantic."[6]
Having put off a novelisation for sixteen years, but aided by his love and knowledge of fishing and the sea, Hemingway suddenly found himself writing a thousand words a day—twice as fast as usual.[7] Although Ivancich's departure on February 7, 1951, caused Hemingway some disquiet, the novella was essentially finished by February 17; Mary, who read each day's production in the evenings, commented that she was "prepared to pardon [Hemingway] for all the disagreeable things [he] had done."[8] Hemingway was himself struck by the quality of this seemingly simple story, which he had written in little more than six weeks. Over the next few months, he sent copies to trusted friends and associates including his publisherCharles Scribner and his friendA. E. Hotchner, who all responded very positively.[9]
The 26,531-word manuscript was held in temporary abeyance for over a year, during which time Hemingway became increasingly certain he wished to publish it on its own merits, rather than as an addendum to the "sea trilogy".[10] Conversations withLeland Hayward and Wallace Meyer encouraged him in this direction—Hemingway was delighted when Hayward secured the publication of the entire novella in one issue ofLife magazine in May 1952. As he wrote to Meyer, Hemingway wished to rebuff the idea he should only writeWar and Peace orCrime and Punishment-like novels.[11] He rejected the initial cover designs from his publisherCharles Scribner's Sons, and asked Ivancich to draw a set of sketches which he found much more suitable.[12] He had intended to dedicate the book to Mary and to his boat, thePilar, but changed his mind onMemorial Day when thinking about friends he had lost; Mary generously accepted the new dedication, to Scribner andMax Perkins.[13] Events moved slowly yet positively during the summer. Hemingway's old adversaryWilliam Faulkner released a highly positive review, andword-of-mouth reached such proportions that both theLife and Scribner's editions were heavily bootlegged.[14]
Life released theirLabor Day printing, containing the first publication ofThe Old Man and the Sea, on September 1, 1952; they sold a record 5.3 million copies in two days. Advanced sales of Scribner's edition in America andJonathan Cape's edition in Britain reached a total of 70,000, and afterwards combined weekly sales in the two countries averaged 5,000. It remained on theNew York Times bestseller list for twenty-six weeks and had been translated into nine languages by the start of 1953.[15]
The Old Man and the Sea met with popular acclaim. In the three weeks after publication, Hemingway received more than eighty letters a day from well-wishers, andLife received many more. Religious figures began to cite the book's themes in theirsermons.[16] Critical reception was initially equally positive, placing the novella as superior in quality toAcross the River and equal to Hemingway's earliest works. WithTime magazine labelling it a "masterpiece",Cyril Connolly praised "the best story Hemingway has ever written" andMark Schorer noted that Hemingway's "incomparable" work set him apart as "the greatest craftsman in the American novel in this century".[17] Many reviewers, seeing it as "the apex of the Hemingway canon", termed it a "classic".[18] Hemingway's favourite review was from the art historianBernard Berenson, who wrote thatThe Old Man and the Sea was superior toHerman Melville'sMoby-Dick and equal in many ways to theHomeric epics.[19]
After the early adulation faded, less positive reviews began to appear.Delmore Schwartz believed that the initial reviewers had prejudiced public opinion in their relief that the novella was not as bad asAcross the River.Seymour Krim wrote thatThe Old Man and the Sea was "only more of the same", whileJohn W. Aldridge felt himself "unable to share in the prevailing wild enthusiasm" for the novella.[20] Years later,Jeffrey Meyers called it Hemingway's "most overrated work", a "mock-serious fable" with "radical weaknesses".[21] Despite the cooling critical outlook,The Old Man and the Sea won thePulitzer Prize for Fiction on May 4, 1953—this was the first time Hemingway had received the award, having been overlooked previously forA Farewell to Arms andFor Whom the Bell Tolls.[22] He also accepted a Medal of Honor fromFulgencio Batista's newly-established Cuban dictatorship, despite personally disapproving of the new regime.[23]The Old Man and the Sea's highest recognition came on October 28, 1954, as the only work of Hemingway's mentioned by theSwedish Academy when awarding him theNobel Prize in Literature; they praised its "powerful, style-making mastery of the art of modern narration".[24]
The Old Man and the Sea has been the subject of a significant amount of critical commentary that has changed over the generations.Wirt Williams noted that early scholarship focused upon "the naturalistic tragedy, the Christian tragedy, the parable of art and the artist, and even the autobiographical mode".[25] Analysis of these themes continued into the 1960s, during which John Killinger connected the novella withAlbert Camus,Jean-Paul Sartre, andFriedrich Nietzsche, andRichard Hovey linked its themes to theOedipus complex. However, Philip Young's republication ofErnest Hemingway: A Reconsideration in 1966 was much less positive than the original edition in 1952, setting the disinterested scholarly tone that would dominate the next decades. Analysis only restarted in earnest with the publication of Gerry Brenner's hyper-critical The Old Man and the Sea: The Story of a Common Man in 1991, and has continued unabated since.[26]
Some literary critics findThe Old Man and the Sea inferior to Hemingway's earlier works.Dwight Macdonald criticises the pseudo-archaic prose which pretends it ishigh culture, but in reality is anything but.[33] He compares the novella unfavourably with Hemingway's earlier works; he deploredThe Old Man and the Sea as garrulous and repetitive when compared to the "disciplined, businesslike understatement" ofThe Undefeated, a short story Hemingway wrote in 1927.[34] Similarly, Brenner characterises the novella as riddled with amateurish mistakes in style and prose.[35] Meyers criticisesThe Old Man and the Sea's melodrama, symbolism, and irony, concluding, like Macdonald, that "Hemingway either deceived himself about the profundity of his art" or expertly satisfied the desires of a pretentious audience.[36]
Robert Weeks notes that the novella abounds in factual impossibilities—he cites Santiago's near-clairvoyance in identifying fishes and judging weather patterns. Weeks maintains that Hemingway—previously criticized for his distaste for narrative invention—had instilled insincerity at the heart of his novel. He concluded thatThe Old Man and the Sea is "an inferior Hemingway novel."[37] Bickford Sylvester comments that most of the errors Weeks outlined were based upon faults in then-current science, and some others were intended to nudge readers towards the work's subtext and deepest details.[38] Sylvester argues that seemingly-implausible narrative details inThe Old Man and the Sea are actually hints. He cites the baseball conversation between Santiago and Manolin, which subtly indicates not only the precise dates of the novella's events (September 12–16, 1950) but also parallels the fisherman with his hero DiMaggio, also the son of a fisherman, who similarly resurged in performance during that week.[39]
The novella contains significantChristian symbolism. The name "Santiago" is Spanish forSt. James, theApostle who had previously, according to theNew Testament, been a fisherman, and who posthumously became thepatron saint ofSpain with his shrine atSantiago de Compostela.[40] In a letter to a Father Brown in 1954, Hemingway wrote "You know about Santiago and you know that the name is no accident"; the academicH. R. Stoneback argues that this meansThe Old Man and the Sea has deep connections tothe pilgrimage to Santiago, which is also heavily drawn upon inThe Sun Also Rises. Stoneback draws an explicit link between the events of the novella and themiraculous catch of fish in theGospel of Luke—both involve fishermen experiencing bad luck, going out into the deep sea, and taking a great catch; he also connects repeated allusions tostars in Hemingway's text tothe traditional Latin etymology of "Compostela"—campus stellae (lit.'field of stars').[41] Stoneback argues that Hemingway emphasises "the humility and gentleness, the poverty, resolution and endurance of St. James the pilgrim" while de-emphasising the warriorJames Matamoros; this choice "reconstruct[s] the paradigm of sainthood".[42]
One of Santiago's credos is that "a man can be destroyed but not defeated", a theme which is present in most of Hemingway's protagonists and stories, from Jake Barnes inThe Sun Also Rises to Robert Jordan inFor Whom the Bell Tolls, and Richard Cantwell inAcross the River; it is also a primary theme inTo Have and Have Not.[43] Backman views Santiago as the climactic "matador" of Hemingway's works, who manages to seek a type of natural violence quite unlike the "violent ritualized"bullfighting or "uneasily insistent" killing found in previous novels.[44] Joseph Waldmeir similarly findsThe Old Man and the Sea to contain a better synthesis of Hemingway's views on mortality than works such asDeath in the Afternoon (1932).[45]
Many critics have drawn parallels not only between Santiago and St. James, but between Santiago andJesus himself, especially with regard to Christ'sPassion andcrucifixion. Melvin Backman outlines several, beginning with the Santiago's wish to "rest gently ... against the wood and think of nothing"; Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays also cite the preceding scene, in which Santiago is cut and bleeds from near the eye, as astigmatic evocation of the wounds inflicted by thecrown of thorns.[46] An often-cited passage occurs when Santiago spots two sharks:[47]
"Ay," he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.
This passage was characterised by Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays as "a clear reference to acrucifixion"; taking place, like Christ's death, at three o'clock on a Friday afternoon, it acts as the climax of the religious parallels.[48] Brenner finds the Christian allusions deeply problematic, commenting that the "facile linking of Santiago's name with Christ's" was unnecessary and disrespectful towards the New Testament.[49] Dismissing both Brenner's conclusion and any approach which defines Santiago as a Christ-figure as overly simplistic, Stoneback argues that the figure of Santiago ultimately embodied Hemingway's ideals, and was intended to be esteemed as such.[50]
Brenner's 1991 critique characterises Santiago as a supremely flawed individual: unintelligent, arrogant,paternalist, andanti-environmentalist. He criticises the fisherman's inability to ignore economic considerations as he loots the sea of its treasures.[51] He further commented that Santiago, portrayed as blatantly sexist and hostile towards all things female, was in factfeminized by hissecret desire for Manolin, who was himself alternately traumatised and manipulated by Santiago's aggression and duplicity.[52] Brenner's analysis has been strongly criticised: Stoneback terms it a "jejune litany of ... shock-schlock critical fast-food [and] tired old questions", while Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays notes that "much of the book reeks of rabid exaggeration and misreading".[53] In answer to Glen Love's similarecologist critiques, they write that both Brenner and Love dismiss economic realities and ask the uneducated Santiago to consider problems that few outside biology cared about in 1950.[54]
Susan Beegel, analysingThe Old Man and the Sea from anecofeminist perspective,[55] rejects Brenner's view of Santiago's sexism; instead, she writes that Santiago is in effect wedded to and at the service of the female sea.[56] Beegel nevertheless characterises Santiago as viewing the feminine sea as tumultuous, cruel, and chaotic, and thus in need of being overcome by male power.[57] Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays disagree, viewing Santiago's approach as wholly respectful.[55] Jeffrey Herlihy comments that Santiago's Spanish heritage must be considered to be a major, and yet invisible, aspect of the novel. Even though Santiago is firmly embedded in Cuban culture, he dreams about Spain every night, and Herlily believes that thismigrant background acts "as a concealed foundation to the novella."[58][59]
Backman, Melvin (1962) [1955]. "Hemingway: The Matador and the Crucified". InBaker, Carlos (ed.).Ernest Hemingway: Critiques of Four Major Novels. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 135–143.OCLC564729505.
Beegel, Susan (1985). "Santiago and the Eternal Feminine: GenderingLa Mar inThe Old Man and the Sea". In Broer, Lawrence; Holland, Gloria (eds.).Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice.Tuscaloosa:University of Alabama Press.ISBN978-0-8173-1136-0.
Cruz, Mary (1981).Cuba y hemingway en gran río de azul [Cuba and Hemingway on the Great Blue River] (in Spanish). Translated by Delpino, Mary.Havana: Unión de Escritores y Artistes de Cuba.
Stoneback, H. R. (2014). "'You Know The Name Is No Accident': Hemingway and the Matter of Santiago". In Sylvester, Bickford; Grimes, Larry (eds.).Hemingway, Cuba, and the Cuban Works.Kent: Kent State University Press. pp. 165–179.ISBN978-1-6063-5181-9.
Sylvester, Bickford (1996). "The Cuban Context in The Old Man and the Sea". In Donaldson, Scott (ed.).The Cambridge Companion to Hemingway. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. pp. 243–268.ISBN9781139000345.
Sylvester, Bickford; Grimes, Larry; Hays, Peter L. (2018).Reading Hemingway'sThe Old Man and the Sea: Glossary and Commentary.Kent: Kent State University Press.ISBN978-1-6063-5342-4.
Waldmeir, Joseph (1962). "Confiteor Hominem: Ernest Hemingway's Religion of Man". InBaker, Carlos (ed.).Ernest Hemingway: Critiques of Four Major Novels. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons.OCLC564729505.
Burhans Jr., Clinton S. (1962). "The Old Man and the Sea: Hemingway's Tragic Vision of Man". InBaker, Carlos (ed.).Ernest Hemingway: Critiques of Four Major Novels. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 150–155.OCLC564729505.
Jobes, Katharine T., ed. (1968).Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Old Man and the Sea. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.ISBN0136339174.
