Thoughts about Old Man And Sea
samlautime
The point is man, having intelligence and an excess of will, and perhaps not the ability, nobility, and beauty of other creatures, can go too far, and when he does, nature will humble him, cutting off his excesses and defeating or destroying his temporary successes and triumphs over it. The plot is simple and there is no great critical moment. The story has symmetry. At its center is the fisherman’s hooking the great and noble fish. The first half is the history of the old man, his relationship with a young boy who aspires to be a fisherman, the old man’s bad luck which split the boy and man (the old man had taken no fish for 84 days, so the boy was not with the old man during this fishing trip), the old man’s bad luck that inspires him to take his skiff far out near the Gulf Stream and fish deep for a big fish. In the background is the old man’s dream, originating from his history and travel to Africa; Lions on the beach, guarding it and playing. The second half is first the endurance and tricks of the old man to outlast and kill the great Marlin, and second, his unsuccessful effort to protect the corpse of the Marlin from a variety of sharks. In the end the old man returns with nothing but the head and skeleton of the Marlin. The book concludes with a remark by the only woman in the book; she asks about the skeleton, and as the waiter answers her to tell her the story of sharks eating the Marlin, she jumps to the silly and false conclusion that the skeleton is that of a beautiful shark. I found that the narrative style smoothly and arrestingly carried the tale; the story was not told in the first person; the narrator was not a part of the cast; the narration peered into the mind of the old man, as did his talking to himself, the young boy, the Marlin.
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