“Our battles are not with marlins, with sharks, with poverty, or even with old age; yet we struggle against some foe at some time in our lives.” – Sandra Effinger, Santiago: Hemingway’s Champion
The Old Man and the Sea is honestly one of the best books I have ever read. In Ernest Hemingway’s book The Old Man and the Sea, the tone of the book is ennobling, and the wording is straightforward but highly descriptive. The action scenes plus the characters are highly imaginative.
I picked the lion picture for my graphic organizer (per our assignment in Mr. Van Lannen’s class) because it represents where Santiago is most comfortable. It’s like his safe space away from everything. He is always dreaming of them as well. At the end of the book the boy says that Santiago was dreaming about lions. That is because he was finally at peace with himself and that was kind of his heaven: “He was sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”
The picture of the flying fish and the turtle represent his closeness with nature. Compared to other people he respects and admires nature and that is why you could say he is very inspiring. “Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered.” Santiago demonstrates the heart of a turtle.
The reason I picked the two marlins is because it shows how much he cares about the earth and about animals. An example of this is when he talks about the two marlins and that when he caught one of them the other one stayed by the boat the whole time. It shows that he thinks that fish have emotions and feelings. He doesn’t just care about himself, he is very selfless. Santiago also cares about the boy more than he should because they are not even related and he treats him like he is his son.
Santiago and the marlin represent luck versus misfortune. Santiago was very lucky to catch that big of a fish, but when the sharks came and ate his marlin he again fell into misfortune. Santiago said that he shouldn’t have gone out that far and that is why he was unlucky. The shark shows “noble defeat” on Santiago’s part. He lost because all the sharks ate the fish, but he did battle and gave himself a chance. He also proved that he was lucky because he was able to catch the marlin; more of a moral victory for Santiago. The battle of man versus the elements is a great example of the overall theme: “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
