American literature, The old man and the sea, Ernest Hemingway

American Literature

March 15, 2019

Passage Analysis

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway sets the stage for the story with the following passage:

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents told him that the old man was now definitely with salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.” This passage is essential in the story to show the reader just how unlucky the old man was. The passage also tells the reader about the characters without formally introducing them.

In the passage, Hemingway uses actions to provide an idea of each character’s personality in the reader’s head. By describing that each day the old man goes out in his skiff and always comes back with nothing, it is understood that he is relentless and wants to prove himself without directly stating him as so. Hemingway also uses this tactic to describe the boy as a compassionate and empathetic person by mentioning that he helps the old man unload his gear every day. While the reader does not know the names of the characters at this point, Hemingway’s writing style provides them with an image of their personalities.

Hemingway uses a narrative voice throughout the passage to create a tableau of what life is like for the old man and the boy. He does not go into acute detail, but simply narrates the characters’ lives to be relatively repetitive and dull. He does not finitely describe what time the characters wake up every morning or what they eat, but gives enough detail so that the reader has a general understanding of what the lives of each character is like.

Hemingway also uses the passage to gain sympathy and interest from the reader to build towards the rest of the story. After reading the passage, the reader feels empathy for the old man. The description of the old man’s repetitive days make the reader want to reach out and help him catch a fish. While gaining sympathy, Hemingway also builds suspense and makes the reader question, “Will the old man ever catch a fish?”

Finally, Hemingway uses figurative language and biblical references. He uses a simile to describe the old man’s flag as “looking like the flag of permanent defeat.” When he writes about the “first forty days” that the boy stayed with the old man, it may remind the reader of the biblical story of how Jesus spent forty days and forty nights in the desert without food or water. The old man’s deprivation from any fish could be a reference to that particular biblical story.

Overall, Hemingway accomplishes a lot in a mere fourteen lines. He provides general personas for the two main characters, gains sympathy from and hooks the reader into the story, and uses figurative language and biblical references.

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