A Study of Hemingway's the Old Man and the Sea

In the nearly fifty years since the first publication of The Old Man and the Sea, there has been a veritable flurry of critical essays on the nature of the story itself and its protagonist, essays that examined the underlying religious, social, psychological and sexual underpinnings of Hemingway's characterization of Santiago. However, one aspect of this character has been generally ignored: how completely unlike Hemingway's other major protagonists the old man of the title is in many aspects of construction and execution. Regardless of the outlook one brings to a reading of The Old Man and the Sea, this singularity must be noted, and examined for its relevance in the Hemingway canon, as both a character and an interpretive force for the novel as a whole.

The differences appear as soon as the reader begins his or her reading of The Old Man and the Sea, with the physical reality of Santiago himself. Our first description of him begins thus: "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert. Everything about him was old except his eyes" (Hemingway 9, 10). Prior to The Old Man and the Sea, all the protagonists of Hemingway's novels were young men in the prime of life, with the exception of Colonel Richard Cantwell in Across the River and Into the Trees, and that character was middle-aged, not possessing the advanced years that Santiago does. The peculiarity of making Santiago an elderly (though by no means an infirm one) character is enhanced when noted that Hemingway made this choice only once in his long writing career; even in posthumous works like The Garden of Eden, we find characters that are in their physical and mental prime (although when considering characters like Jake Barnes, we may have to adjust the meaning of "prime"), though perhaps none as potent as Santiago himself, whose physical strength and mental fortitude is such that he is able to survive what Robert P. Weeks characterized as "an ordeal that would do in even a vigorous young man" and "an incredible performance" (Jobes, 35).

A subtler difference in characterization, and one that may have been more a result of cultural mores of the time, is Santiago's relative lack of cultural sophistication. The protagonists of the Hemingway continuum tend to be, much like Hemingway was himself, men not only of sport and physical action, but of thought as well. Most of his main characters were artists or writers, well educated and familiar with literature and politics of the day, again as Hemingway was. Santiago, while certainly not unintelligent or slow in thought, shows no awareness of such things, nor any particular inclination to learn; he reads the newspaper, but only for sports news or lottery scores.

At the time The Old Man and the Sea was written, Cuba was undergoing the first in a series of political upheavals, which would lead to coup d'etats by various revolutionaries (in 1952, Fulgencio Batista and then, Fidel Castro in 1959). Perhaps curiously, given the perspicacity and political awareness that Hemingway brought to his other work, most notably For Whom the Bell Tolls (for example, his prediction that the Spanish Civil War was a dress rehearsal for another world war, a prediction proved horribly correct), not a hint of Cuba's then political situation is contained anywhere within the novel. Santiago has only one interest or area of knowledge outside of his work, which is baseball. His identification with Joe DiMaggio, whose single-mindedness and consummate skill is an obvious parallel to Santiago's, illustrates that even this interest is deeply rooted in his own worldview, and is an extension of his own philosophy and place in his world.

Still another difference the reader will notice is that of ethnicity. Unlike the uniformly white males of European descent that populate Hemingway's other novels, Santiago is Cuban, and obviously not of the same cultural background that spawned Frederic Henry, Nick Adams, Robert Jordan or the author himself. Not only is Santiago of a different ethnic origin than Papa's usual suspects, but he is also the only one who inhabits his native culture within the framework of the story; phrased another way, he is the only Hemingway protagonist who lives where he belongs.

In general, Hemingway's main characters are men outside the world their story takes place in, observers of a world they were not born to or in, most often considering themselves expatriates by choice. Santiago, despite the occasional contrary thought, is fully part of his own existence, and is comfortable within it: "Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing I was born for" (Hemingway, 50). Although the cultural environment of a Cuban fishing village does not play into the story much, except as an acknowledgement of Santiago's status as an unlucky fisherman by his colleagues and Manolin's family, it is something that implicitly fuels what some critics consider to be Santiago's "ordinary wish to be recognized as an individualist who stands out from the crowd" (Brenner, 57). Whether this reading correctly attributes these human emotions to Santiago or not, it is worth noting that in this interpretation, it is the only area with room for his cultural environment to have an impact. All else in the story proper happens entirely in the now, with little regard to events in the past.

This facet of the story - the sheer immensity of the struggle, with no room for introspection or recrimination - leads to an expression of what is perhaps the most fundamental difference between Santiago and his fictional comrades: the lack of psychic trauma and its attendant psychological gymnastics. Unlike For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Sun Also Rises, to name two examples, Santiago suffers from no traumatic past events, nor does he constantly refer back to memories of a different time or circumstance in the difficulty of the moment.

In fact, the only excursion into Santiago's past, other than his dreams, is a pleasant one, where he recalls another triumph of physical strength and perseverance in an athletic competition that lasts two days and ends in defeat for a hitherto undefeated champion. The lesson Santiago takes from this (or rather, the lesson the narrator imparts to us) is that "he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough" (Hemingway, 70), and upon this statement, returns to the present and pragmatic concerns about how to loosen the muscles in his cramping hand. Santiago does not allow mistakes in his past to discolor his feelings or influence his actions; rather, he acknowledges them, proceeds from what he has learned and acts within what he understands to be "the relationship of nature to man [that] proceeds through basic patterns that never vary" (Gurko, 160). This self-awareness, this instinctual understanding of the natural cycle and his place within it, gives Santiago a purity of purpose and self that every one of the other protagonist characters, from Jake Barnes to David Bourne, have lacked regardless of their other qualities.

Considering the aforementioned qualities Hemingway chose to imbue Santiago with, the early critical tendencies to view him as a purely heroic character were obvious conclusions to make. In his critical essay from a 1968 collection, Leo Gurko even went a little bit further in his effusive descriptions of Santiago: "He is more than a hero; he is a superman [italics mine]" (Gurko, 159). While the sobriquet superman may be a bit strong, it is undeniable that Santiago's physical and psychological feats in landing the marlin are impressive; some critics have compared Santiago to Joseph Campbell's archetype of the "man with a thousand faces," a comparison that has some validity to it, at least in light of early critical interpretations, particularly those that drew upon the numerous references to Christ (wounded hands, the carrying of the mast home from the docks on Santiago's back). Being heroic alone, however, does not make Santiago stand out in the Hemingway continuum; other Hemingway heroes, like Robert Jordan for example, also made the cut in that regard with heroic actions (although not to the extent of being considered archetypal), but they do not stand apart from their brethren.

Even if that heroism were enough, it must be considered that not all readings have concluded with unabashed concordance on the question of heroism. As early as 1962, essays accusing Hemingway of using "an extraordinary amount of fakery" (Jobes, 34) were appearing, depicting Santiago as more of a concatenation of natural phenomena and wishful thinking than as a believable character. Later criticism, such as Gerry Brenner's 1991 critical evaluation of The Old Man and the Sea, deconstructed Santiago from a skeptical point of view, debunking previous critical stances such as Santiago's fraternal ethic and depictions as a Christ figure, and introducing arguments for traits such as homosexuality and passive-aggressive traits. While this deconstructionist criticism depends heavily on the adoption of modern viewpoints to work, there exists enough critical mass on the subject to be worthy of consideration.

Assuming that the deconstructionist arguments are completely valid, if the reader does not consider Santiago to be the heroic ideal, how does that affect our conception of him as a character apart, a protagonist separate from the Hemingway canon? If, for example, the skeptic's observation that The Old Man and the Sea, instead of portraying a brotherly relationship between Santiago and the marlin, displays a hypocritical relationship based on fratricide and thus displays an "ethical paradox" (Brenner, 36), does that force the reader to view Santiago as a flawed hero, and thus in no way different than the other protagonists of Hemingway's novels?

The answer to this question, regardless of one's critical standpoint, is no, for several reasons. First, even if the question of heroism were completely removed from the picture, there are enough differences in the construction of Santiago to superficially separate him from the rest of the Hemingway protagonist collection. Before he even takes a breath or makes a definitive action, he is unique within Papa's pantheon in his heritage, psychology and demographic, and character consistency demands that subsequent development take the character to different roads and choices than his fictional brothers, from Nick Adams on up, would take. While this set of conditions should be sufficient as proof, we as readers cannot, and should not, take this as axiomatic; further proof must be obtained from Hemingway's own hand.

More importantly, even if we accept entirely the deconstructionist viewpoint and reduce Santiago from purely heroic to flawed human status, the reality of the story remains clear (a state which Hemingway, who took pride in his realism and factual accuracy, would have enjoyed): Santiago, regardless of his motivations and conflicting rationales in the skeptical eye, did go out alone in a small fishing skiff and over the course of a couple of days, catch, kill and attach to his craft a fish longer than the skiff itself. The fact that he was unable to sell the fish or partake of it due to sharks is irrelevant in the larger context of the story itself, and to all but the most simplistic of readers. At its most basic, The Old Man and the Sea is a parable about life and the triumphing of human will over adversity, and the denouement of the novel does not, can not in fact, detract from the nature of Santiago's victory. In a very real sense, Santiago's life has been crowned with a legendary achievement, and allows him to enjoy the reward he now craves, "the freedom which he finally has to dream, uninterrupted, of the lions that he had once seen playing like cats upon the shores of Africa" (Jobes, 63). Like the hero of Hemingway's classic story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," Santiago has seen Paradise, and although Santiago is not ready to go there yet, he has earned it as a hero would.

To make further note on how remarkable, how singular the character of Santiago and his epic story truly is in Hemingway's body of work, it is necessary to take stock of the historical backdrop in which it appeared. When The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, Hemingway had been an established writer for twenty-five years. He had published eight books, five of which were novels, one play, and a large number of stories and articles, and was considered one of the most important literary figures of the time, but was already beginning to suffer the ill health and depressions that would eventually lead to his suicide. The world in which Hemingway had begun his literary career had vastly changed, and not necessarily for the better; as one critic has stated, "part of the long-standing appeal of The Old Man and the Sea lies in its remoteness from our world" (Brenner, 3).

A quick glance at global history illustrates some of the reasons remoteness from the world might be desirable, particularly to readers in 1952. The aforementioned political troubles in Cuba were the least of the problems on the world stage, at least for Americans. The combined nations of Europe were still reeling from the atrocities of World War II, rebuilding itself under the Marshall Plan and burying the millions of European dead. The newly founded Soviet Union, recovering from the death of 20 million people in war and untold millions from Stalin, was fully engaged in the Cold War with America, which had warmed up with military action in Korea. On American shores, Senator Joseph McCarthy had already begun what would become known as the Red Scare, a four-year period that ended in disgrace and irreparably damaged countless careers and lives. Two months after publication of The Old Man and the Sea, America detonated the first hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands. Civil rights struggles, spearheaded by Brown v. the Board of Education, were starting to reach into the national consciousness, thanks to radio and that newest technological wonder, TV. The cynicism of the Lost Generation had deepened, from the disquiet and fear of impending war, to the all-out horror of death camps and the atomic bomb, to finally the paranoia and tension of a world living at sword point, held hostage by ideologies and political complexities that few truly understood. The world had changed completely in the space of a decade and a half, and the literature of the time, as Hemingway understood, would need to change as well.

This understanding leads us to the most important reason why Santiago's difference from other Hemingway protagonists carves a unique place in the body of Papa Hemingway's writings, and makes both the story of The Old Man and the Sea and its protagonist completely different than what came before or after in Hemingway's career. Of all the novels that Hemingway wrote and all the heroes he created, only Santiago and the particulars of his struggle truly exist, truly can exist, outside of the historical era that Hemingway wrote in. Nick Adams, Robert Jordan, Harry Morgan, David Bourne, Richard Cantwell, Jake Barnes: all men who, whatever their strengths and flaws, were products of their specific time and place. Their stories all existed within a fixed historical period and geographical area; take those specificities away, let time carry away a knowledge of those mores and cultural cues, and their stories lose potency, lose meaning. Paris in the 1920s, the Spanish mountains during the Spanish Civil War, World War I Italy, Key West of the 1930s: while the stories set there can be read and enjoyed today, some of their power is diluted by time, and will continue to be diluted.

Only Santiago, a simple fisherman whose daily routine and knowledge, skills and wisdom have been known in essentially the same form for centuries dating back to Phoenicians and beyond, existed in a state "meaningful to different ages, cultures, and backgrounds" (Brenner, 7), and only he and his story possess a quality that resists the passage of time, that allows the story to unfold free of questions about time and culture, history and psychology. It is this attribute of timelessness, the purity of struggle at a primitive level, that makes The Old Man and the Sea truly stand alone, even from works that are widely considered to be superior, and the bulk of this aloof quality can be traced directly to the character of Santiago, who like the story that made him known, stands apart from his colleagues in the Hemingway continuum.

Works Cited

Brenner, Gerry. The Old Man and the Sea: Story of a Common Man. New York: Twayne Publishers. 1991

Gurko, Leo. Ernest Hemingway and the Pursuit of Heroism. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 1968

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback. 1995

Jobes, Katharine T., ed. 20^th Century Interpretations of The Old Man and the Sea. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1968