Dear reader...

Dear reader,

In this essay, I discuss the criticism of Ernest Hemingway’s the Old Man and the Sea. I refute the claim that Hemingway’s novella is inferior to his previous works because of its romanticizing and divergence from reality. My original attempt was a summary of Hemingway’s life and his criticism throughout his life. I am very happy with the final product. I think doing a moment in a novel and a Lit. Crit. essay was definitely a step in the right direction and it formed my paper quite a bit. My “Golden Thread” is an emphasis on history and past. I chose a moment where Santiago thinks about the past that relates to his present. I chose this because Santiago’s journey to catch the giant marlin is also a battle to solidify his stature in history as a master fisherman as well as the Old Man and the Sea itself is also Hemingway’s battle to solidify his title as a great writer and author in literary history.

Expository essay

if this is formatted in a weird way, here is the link https://docs.google.com/a/eths202.org/document/d/15SG4iajbffuNY29suzkcLu13GrEDqIg1TFrdnIOrSQM/edit

Julian Graef

Romano

AP English Lit. and Comp.

5/20/14

The Evolution of Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an old fisherman and his journey to ambitiously catch a great fish and helplessly watch it get eaten by sharks and returning home with nothing, was Ernest Hemingway's last published major work. The novella has stood through time and history hailed as one of his greatest works and arguably his best known work. Among all of the praise and acclaim that the book received upon its release, there were also critics who diverged from the consensus, saying that, like his previous work, Across the River and Into the Trees, his writing was romanticized and emotional, which contradicted his older works that contained unemotional or “real” descriptions of the world he created.

One of these critics was Robert Weeks, who in his critical essay published in 1962, argued that the novella is divergence from the typical Hemingway as the animals and environment around Santiago, the protagonist, act differently with a more fantastical nature than they have in his other works, and because of this, The Old Man and the Sea is inferior to his earlier works.  Although Weeks is correct that The Old Man and the Sea does contain animals with a more grand and magical appearance, It is this subtle difference in appearance that has made The Old Man and the Sea so successful upon its release and throughout literary history. As Weeks states, Hemingway “ was himself criticized by other writers, notably Faulkner, for his devotion to the facts and his unwillingness to "invent."”. (Weeks 3) This change in Hemingway's is not a weakness as Weeks suggests but is instead the end result of an elevation of his writing that continues over time. Hemingway has improved his writing, being able to incorporate the suggestions of others to make an already developed and proven writing style even more symbolic and individual.

A particular moment in The Old Man and the Sea that weeks criticizes is a moment where Santiago, while being towed by the male marlin he is trying to catch, remembers a time a while ago when he caught one of two marlins, one female and male, that were swimming together. Santiago remembers the different reactions to catching the female marlin and the behavior the male marlin. He noted that “the male fish always let the female fish feed first” (Hemingway 13)  and that when the female was hooked, it “made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight  that soon exhausted her” (Hemingway 13) Santiago describes how, when the female was caught,  “the male stayed with her, crossing the line and circling with her on the surface” and finally when the female was brought aboard the skiff, “the male fish  jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful,... and he had stayed”. (Hemingway 13)

Weeks hails this passage as a marvelous example of “fakery”, saying that the events depicted are “a preposterous piece of natural history, combining sentimentality and inexact observation.” (weeks 23) While the scene is unrealistic of the clear relationship between the two marlins, rather than degrade the quality of the writing, the passage humanizes the marlin, giving them feeling, love and emotion similar to humans, such as the “panic-stricken” and desperate flailing of the female marlin when being caught and the ability for compassion that the male shows and his hinted grief of staying “so close that the old man was afraid he would cut the line”. This humanization turns the two marlin, the present day marlin, and nature itself into character. Rather than Santiago fighting against a mindless, emotionless force, he is battling an opponent. Hemingway has transformed the simple man vs. nature conflict into two beings, two wills, who are at odds with each other, both struggling for the same primal goal of survival. The marlin pulling Santiago’s skiff is as fearful of death as he is, with the same capability of love.

This transformation of the marlin and nature into a character would not be possible without the romanticizeing of reality. If Hemingway had stayed with his passed style of the un-preposterous, Santiago’s journey and battle against nature would be less meaningful. Santiago would have killed a simple fish rather than sacrificing a companion and experiencing the loss of that sacrifice as he must watch sharks come and devour his companion, leaving him with less than nothing when he started because he is left with just a skeleton, a reminder of his simultaneous gain and loss relationship with nature.

Bibliography

Multigenre: collage

Multigenre; Qualities 2

Endurance

Endurance is always misunderstood. It is the burden he must bare. Others think Endurance will save them and carry them in their times of struggle. They believe him to be otherworldly; resistant to suffering, despair and pain. Endurance is not magical. He gets tired and will eventually fail to deliver those hopes and wants that so many set upon his shoulders. When he fails he will return better and stronger. He will lift more weight of peoples demands and hold more dreams in his hands. Endurance’s house is bare. filled only with the necessities of life. There is a bed, walls, a kitchen and bath. The bed is the most important for him. Endurance spends most of his time laying on the bed, trying to recuperate from the demands of his day before someone undoubtedly comes with another want to impose on him. He cannot socialize as whenever he tries he is simply asked to perform favors for those he meets. Endurance never refuses a demand. Even those he knows he cannot complete. He simply lacks the ability to say no but merely runs until he falls. His most frequent demands come from Pride and Stubbornness who so often ask him to carry out a task for which they are unwilling to admit fault. Although Endurance lives a simple life, He is not unhappy. He finds comfort knowing his purpose in the world, something which very few are able to achieve, and knowing that he is necessary to achieve the dreams of the fortunate few who can change the world.

Multigenre: qualities 1

Stubborn and Careless were inseparable. So much so that others would get confused as to who was who. although they were confused so often, they were different personalities. Stubborn had a strict aversion to being told what to do. Especially when it was pointed out that his actions were flawed, which they often were. Careless simply didn’t listen. He would come home and be told to pick up his room and then fall on his bed. Stubborn would come home and be told to pick up his room and instead throw paper on the ground. Both were older than their acquaintances although they did not act it. Stubborn and Careless hate Change, Truth, and Responsibility, with a passion. They are infuriating. Always pointing out their mistakes, making them do what was “right”; hindering their ability to make Pride happy. Stubborn will never let go of anything. He will meddle and strangle until his project falls to pieces. He will pursue a goal to the point of the limit of his abilities and then continue on farther. He will never change and will never subside. Sometimes Stubborn succeeds but often he fails; returning blinded and defeated but never discouraged.

Multigenre: poem for two voices

Independant reading post 2

For my Research, I have decided to investigate and look at the life of Ernest Hemingway and his writing and literature. I was originally going to research overfishing but that turned out to be an extremely dull topic. Hemingway was born in Oak Park to a father who was physician. During World War one, Hemingway worked in an ambulance crew that went around battlefields helping wounded soldiers and picking up the dead. Because of this, Hemingway saw a lot of gore and blood during the war. His experience during the war and the wounds and death that he saw during one of the bloodiest wars in history would go on to shape his writing later on. The war created his unique writing style of being very straightforward and direct in his literature. His books often featuring the back drop of stereotypical, hyper-manly sports such as big game hunting and fishing. His writing style is believed to be so heavily influenced by the war because of its haunting emptiness and sort of uninvolved feeling in his scenes and descriptions.

            The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway’s most famous works and was his last major book release. Hemingway often used himself as base for his works. He used his time in Paris to write The Sun Also Rises and used his war experience for A Farewell to Arms. The Old Man and the Sea used the book as a metaphor for his present state and his frustration with his writing. During the 1920’s and 30’s, Hemingway was very poplar. During the 40’s and the time that He wrote The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway had gone for about ten years without publishing a major work. During the 40’s, Hemingway covered the Second World War. After the war, in 1950, Hemingway published Across the River and Into the Trees. The book was critically mauled immediately and his reputation as a great writer was in danger of being taken away.

            The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingway’s answer to the disastrous release of his last book. It was a final effort to prove that he was still a great writer. The novel’s protagonist, Santiago, shows a lot of parallels to Hemingway. Santiago is an old fisherman who used to be considered a great fisherman but has since gone eighty-four days without catching a fish and has since been considered a has been and incapable. This is very similar to the way many critics considered Hemingway’s best years to be gone and that his writing ability has faded away. Santiago finds a huge marlin and struggles with it out to sea where he kills it. On the way back to shore, sharks come and eat the fish to the point where he has nothing to show for his efforts or his mastery to the other fisherman. This is a very clear metaphor for Hemingway’s struggle in his old age to write and create a masterpiece that will then be devoured and taken apart to the point of nothing, which is what happened with Across the River and Into the Trees and what he believed would happened with The Old Man and the Sea.

Fourth quarter independent reading post #1

For my last independent reading assignment, I am reading The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The Old Man and the Sea is a story of an old man that comes to terms with nature and his old age as he accepts his place within nature’s vast power that it holds over his life. Santiago is a fisherman who had and eighty-four days without catching a fish. On the eighty-fifth day Santiago baits a large marlin that drags his boat far out to sea to the point that he can no longer see land. Santiago fights for three day with the marlin all while struggling with his stubborn will that does not match his aged body. On the third day, the old man is able to kill the massive fish, but as he sails back to land, sharks gradually eat away the marlin as he futilely tries to fight them off.  When he returns to land, all that is left of the huge fish nothing more than a skeleton skeleton.  Santiago curses himself for allowing himself to stray so far out to sea but he is content with the notion of his magnificent catch and admires nature for its penchant for mysteries and marvels.

Since the book has a large emphasis on fishing and its cohesiveness with nature, for the research part of my independent reading, I was thinking of researching modern fishing throughout the world. I know that there is a problem with over fishing and I thought this might be an interesting tie in as a lot of the book is Santiago and his Cohesiveness and balance that he is able to find with nature while he is fishing. He spends a lot of time observing its tranquility. I think this might be an interesting difference as we now use fishing as a form of destruction to nature when it could and should be a way for us to get closer to nature.

I was also thinking of researching the history and culture of Cuba as the book takes place in Havana. It would help my understanding of the setting and the book more or I was going to research Hemingway’s motive and processes for writing his stories, how he thought of the stories and how he chose the setting; if Havana had any affect on him that caused him to write the old man and the Sea and set it in Cuba and how he chose his imagery and symbolism.