“More than just a story of a fisherman and his fish, The Old Man and the Sea is a profound portrait of human solitude, challenge, and the dignity of life. Why do people call it a masterpiece?
About the author, Ernest Hemingway
“Ernest Hemingway, author of The Old Man and the Sea, was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, California. His father, Clarence Edmunds Hemingway, was a physician, and his mother, Grace Hall, was a musically talented woman. Hemingway was the eldest son, and his parents frequented a lake in northern Michigan called Weelun, whose wilderness made a lasting impression on the young Hemingway. It would later become a major factor in the development of his literary sensibilities. In particular, his first short story collection, In Our Time, reflects his experiences as a boy. In 1913, he enrolled at Oak Park High School, where he began to excel in sports and literature. He participated in the student newspaper and wrote short stories, albeit rudimentary ones, on issues of nature and violence that would become his favorite subjects throughout his life.
In April 1917, the United States entered World War I. Hemingway graduated from high school that year, but his father’s opposition to joining the war effort forced him to give up. Instead, he took a job at The Kansas City Star newspaper, where he was given the opportunity to take formal writing lessons. Unable to suppress his burning desire to serve, he was eventually assigned to the Italian front as a lieutenant in the Red Cross as a wounded man carrier the following year. A month later, he was engaged in combat in the suburbs of Milan, and then on the Northern Italian front, where he was severely wounded in the leg. He described many of his experiences in A Farewell to Arms.
In January 1919, he was discharged from the army and returned to New York. In the fall of that year, Hemingway traveled back to Chicago, where he became a temporary reporter for the Star Weekly, a weekly newspaper in Turonto, Canada, where he had the opportunity to take formal writing lessons. When Hemingway married his first wife, Hudley Richardson, and traveled to Europe as a foreign correspondent for the Star Weekly, Anderson’s letters of introduction gave him access to the world’s leading writers, poets, and critics living in Paris.
During his stay in Paris, Hemingway socialized with leading literary figures such as James Joyce and received literary guidance. Particularly influential were Gertrude Stein and the poet Ezra Pound, who helped him with rigorous writing lessons based on concise sentences.
In 1923, Three Stories and Ten Poems was finally published for the first time. Hemingway then cut ties with the newspaper in Turonto and began writing full-time. In 1924, he published In Our Time, which depicted a dark world of violence and inner life that was far from peaceful: bullfighting, war, and murder. The following year, he published The Torrents of Spring, and in 1926, he published his first full-length novel, The Sun Also Rises, which caused a sensation, and it was at this point that he gained fame as a writer.
In January 1927, he officially divorced his wife, from whom he had already been separated for more than a year. That summer, however, he remarried Poeline Pfeiffer, who was in Paris as a correspondent for Vogue magazine, and returned to the United States.
Hemingway began writing A Farewell to Arms in early 1928 and completed his immortalized novel six months later. This second novel was serialized in Scribner’s magazine the following year, 1929, and was published in paperback in late September. “A Farewell to Arms was an instant hit, selling more than 80,000 copies within four months of its publication. It was eventually adapted for the stage and, in 1932, for film.
In the summer of 1931, Hemingway wrote Death in the Afternoon, based on his experiences traveling in Spain. Hemingway also traveled to other parts of the world, including a hunting trip to East Africa, which he documented and published in a book titled The Green Hills of Africa.
He used his experiences from these hunting trips to write one of his most famous short stories, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It is considered to be the most autobiographical of Hemingway’s works.
In July 1936, an uprising broke out in Spain, and Hemingway resumed his activism in the name of the anti-fascist struggle. This earned him applause from the left-wing camp. The uprising ended in victory for the fascists, and it was shortly afterward that Hemingway wrote For Whom The Bell Tolls. In October 1940, For Whom The Bell Tolls was published, and by April of the following year, it had sold a record 500,000 copies.
After completing the work, Hemingway divorced his second wife and married again, this time to a woman he had met in Madrid, the writer Mother Galhón. They bought a mansion near Havana and began their third marriage there.
In September 1939, World War II broke out, and when the United States entered the war, Hemingway traveled to Europe as a correspondent and participated in the famous D-Day landings. He returned after a year of service, but by December of that year, he and Murder had divorced. He then married Mary Welsh.
His middle grade novel, The Old Man and the Sea, was published in 1952 to widespread critical acclaim.
The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of an old fisherman living off the coast of Cuba who spots a whale bigger than his boat, fights it for two days and nights, finally manages to catch it, but when he returns to port at dawn after a shark attack, there is nothing left of the animal but its head and bones. It seems like a very simple story, but this simplicity has infinite meaning. It seems to symbolize the creative struggle of an artist. The old fisherman is a good example of a human being who, despite all the hardships and adversity, never lost his courage and faith.
Hemingway traveled to Africa again in the summer of 1953 on a hunting trip. However, in 1954, he was involved in an airplane accident that left him with a fractured skull and damaged internal organs. His health rapidly deteriorated, and he was unable to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony that year for The Old Man and the Sea. In the spring of 1960, Hemingway moved from Cuba to Ketcham, Idaho, but on July 2, 1961, he took his own life by shooting himself in the head with his favorite shotgun. His funeral was held in Ketcham on July 6, and his remains were buried on a small hill north of Ketcham.
Why is The Old Man and the Sea considered a masterpiece?
Why is The Old Man and the Sea considered a masterpiece? “When you first encounter The Old Man and the Sea, it’s hard to know why. However, as I read it over and over again, I came to understand its appeal better and better, and the more I read it, the more I realized how much it moved me.
Almost all creators, regardless of their field, use their work to tell their stories. Of course, their real life may coincide with it, or it may be completely different. In that sense, this work can be a bit complex, which can be better understood if you approach it based on Hemingway’s real life, or it can be relatively simple, which can be understood by simply reading what it says. From a writer’s point of view, unless there are special circumstances, writers write so that their readers can understand and relate to their thoughts through the words they write. So, from the latter perspective, if you can read this work, discover what Hemingway was trying to say with it, relate to it on some level, and apply it to your own life, you’ve done a pretty good job.
“The Old Man and the Sea is Hemingway’s masterpiece that reminds us of the precious value of life through the story of an old man who hasn’t accomplished much, but whose self-esteem is undiminished by his daily fishing exploits. For many of us who think that only getting to the top is success, that only those who succeed are winners, that everyone but the winners are losers, Hemingway is telling us that it’s not that simple, that life is not that simple, that life is a story of higher dimensions.
He was once an arm-wrestling champion, a man of great strength. The old man is a veteran fisherman who has caught some very large fish and has traveled far away to Africa on an ocean-going fishing boat, so he should be well established in the community. But after 84 days without catching a single fish, he is in desperate need of help from his neighbors. Nevertheless, the old man doesn’t ask for help first. Although he is grateful for their help, he is not at all embarrassed by it; in fact, he shows a genuine humility that is reflected in his steadfastness and age. There’s no hint of despair or desperation in his face. On the 85th day, the old man still goes out to sea with hope. Perhaps it is because of his past experience of catching no fish for 87 days, and then catching walleye for the next three weeks. He tries to suppress his expectations, saying that it is unlikely to happen again, but the experience of overcoming such difficulties must have given him strength and hope. And indeed, on the 85th day, the old man catches a huge fish, and after three days of struggle, on the 87th day, he finally brings up a very large fish, the likes of which he has never seen or heard of before. The joy is hard to imagine for anyone who hasn’t experienced it. The joy is short-lived, however, as sharks attack the old man, robbing him of most of his catch, and he returns to the harbor with the skeletal carcass of the fish, dragging his exhausted body home, where he falls into a deep sleep. Although the outcome seems futile at first, the old man’s indomitable will and hope for life are still evident as he and the young man discuss their new plans.
Through Santiago, the novel makes the reader reflect on the true meaning of life by reminding us of the worldview, the reflection on nature and humans, and the attitude toward life, which are very important topics in our lives.
“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
Through an old man in this novel, Hemingway encourages us to always challenge ourselves in any situation until our strength is exhausted, because we are not made to be defeated. Through this book, we learn wisdom, humility, patience, and courage. In life, there will be periods like the old man’s 84 days, periods between 85 and 87, periods in Africa, periods when you catch a big fish after three weeks on the river, and moments when you are called a champion. All those times make up a noble life.
