many critics his finest. The year after the publication of this novella (or
perhaps ‘fable’ is a better description), Hemingway was awarded the Nobel
prize for literature. He had not written a big novel for years, so the publication
of ‘The old man’ clearly influenced the decision to give him the prestigious
award.
The story is easily told. Very easily, some people seem to think. I found the
following ‘ultra-condensation’ on the internet: “An old man catches a fish that is
too big for his boat. The fish gets eaten by sharks. Then he goes home and
DIES.”
Whilst Hemingway would not have won the Nobel prize if he had put it that way,
this is indeed pretty much what happens, except that he does not DIE but he
“was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by
him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”
Of course one can argue that means that he dies, and I suppose there are
enough indications to make a solid case. Look at the interesting turn of phrase:
“he was still sleeping on his face”. This could indicate that the rest of his body
was, perhaps, not sleeping anymore.
Whilst the fable in itself is interesting, what makes the story doubly interesting is
its metaphorical value. There is an obvious man versus nature theme here,
where the fact that man needs nature (in this case for food) is juxtaposed with
the fact that nature can be stronger than man and lead to its destruction.
`One could tie this in with the ‘circle-of-life’ idea that one should never take
more from nature than one can give. One should not be greedy or misuse
nature. But does the old man really? He has not caught a single fish for over
eighty straight days. As a reader you feel very sorry for the old man. He has to
make a living but nature has been very tough on him... or has he just not been
lucky?
Why is it an old man that has to catch the big fish? An old man at the end of his
life, who knows the sea and how to fish it. A tad embittered because his time is
drawing to a close, but he does not think about that too much – he tries to live
in the present and concentrate on what needs doing now: get that fish. Whilst
he is, in the end, capable of killing the giant, it is to big to take aboard his small
boat and he fastens it to the side of his boat – a perfect prey for the ever
hungry sharks. The old man hopes that a piece of the flesh might still arrive at
the harbour with him – but deep down inside he knows that all will have been in
vain. Hope is the last thing to wither, as Dante famously put it, and in the end
the last great accomplishment of the old man’s life has given him the knowledge
that he is still a great hunter and fisherman – but nothing more.
