Third discussion question for The Old Man and the Sea

This post is going to be about the universal theme of The Old Man and the Sea. When I finished the book and before I started on these blog posts, I thought this book was basically a short story about a man who can beat the odds and can overcome the many obstacles that nature and the gods above throw at him. Then one of the people that I work with saw me writing some things down with the book in front of me. He then told me read this book in high school and it was about the old man representing Jesus. After looking at him funny I reread some of the passages and I guess he was right. There was a lot of actions and physical problems that could have been similar to what happened to Jesus. I guess when I read that I didn't read in dept enough and missed it. So with that theme aside, I am going to talk about what I thought it was, the triumph of the old man against everyone (even if the correct theme is the Jesus one).

Everyone roots for the underdog, and the old man is definitely an underdog. He hasn't caught a fish in almost three months, therefore hasn't made money, and lost his one companion because of his "bad luck" (Hemingway 1). After all of the rising actions and the conflict (see previous blog post) he manages to make it back home and is safe in his bed. Everyone is in awe of him because of the enormous skeleton on his small skiff and the boy shows his love of the old man and cries when he sees him hurt so bad. The old man had to talk himself into continuing a few times, had many different physical injuries that occurred at different times, and beat sharks up. Those events show he has heroic characteristics and is a really good example of how everyone should act. (side note: I kinda see the Jesus thing now after writing about how Santiago overcomes everything. I still think its a little abstract, but everyone reads stuff differently and forms their own opinions.)

Obviously Ernest Hemingway understands the part of human nature that makes someone push on through the pain and never giving up. He only shows the good side of human nature though. Which is fine, but if this book was the only book left in the future, and future radioactivepeoplerobotalienterminatordolphinapemetahumans read it, they won't get the full range of good/bad/love/hate that humans are capable of, although they would understand how the humans of the past could persevere through hardship and beat the odds.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.