1．Introduction
Ernest Hemingway is a famous writer in America in the 20th century. He is also an international literary celebrity in the world. His life was active and adventurous, but it was full of pains. He took part in the First and the Second World Wars. In the First World War, he received a serious wound both in his body and in his mind. He was disappointed with the world and pessimistic about the fate of the man. Then he began his literary career and wrote many works, for example The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For whom the Bell Tolls, the Old Man and the Sea, Death in the afternoon etc. When the novel The Sun Also Rises appeared, Ernest Hemingway became the spokesman of “The Lost Generation”. [1]
The Old Man and the Sea is his best-known novel. It is also his representative work. The novel won the Nobel Prize in 1954. The main character in the novel Santiago became the famous “strong manhood” in the literature. The work reveals the spirit of the man, people’s wisdom, firmness and persistency. Besides, Hemingway created his own literary style. He developed a new literary style characterized by directness and simplicity. He said it was just like the “iceberg”. Hemingway is so famous all over the world that he evoked international critical attention.
From the previous studies, we can see that though critics have studied Hemingway in different perspectives, however, few of them have touched on his writing style of iceberg in the novel The Old Man and the Sea. This thesis is a tentative research on Hemingway’s philosophy of life reflected by this novel. By making this study, we will get a better understanding of Hemingway.
2. Background Information
The background information is very important to study Hemingway’s iceberg style.
In this chapter the author will introduce the background information from two aspects: 1) the social and cultural background; and 2) Hemingway’s personal background.
2.1 Social and Cultural Background
2.1.1 American society of that time
After the civil war the United States saw the great changes in almost every field. American politics, economy and culture were growing and developing rapidly. At the same time, American capitalism was also rising and developing rapidly. America was becoming the world’s industrial power. At this time, there was an economic boom, which produced a sense of optimism and hope among the people. [2] Most Americans believed that there would be more opportunities open to people and the future seemed especially bright. But from the 1880s, the fast development of economy and the growth of big interest groups pushed America to monopoly imperialism. A few financial giants controlled capital. Various kinds of social problems emerged: poverty, class struggle, etc. In front of all these, the Americans were not as hopeful as before. People began to have new ideas about man, society and man’s place has changed. In this period, there was a deep spiritual crisis in the society.
2.1.2 Literary trends of that time
Between the mid-19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, there had been a big flush of new theories and new ideas in both social and natural sciences, which played an indispensable role in bringing about modernism and the modern writings in the United States. [3]
During this period, many famous modernists-Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, etc.-came to public attention. They were all affected by the pessimistic idea to a greater or lesser extend. Faced with the new reality of despair after the First World War, and a nation paralyzed by the Great Depression, these writers accepted the pessimistic idea naturally. So they portrayed in their works that “life was out of control” and “society was disintegrating.” We can see that they have a rather pessimistic view of human life.
2.2 Hemingway’s biographical introduction
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899. He was the second child of the family. His father, Clarence E. Hemingway was a physician, and was also an enthusiastic outdoorsman; he liked outdoor activities, fishing, hunting etc. This at any rate profoundly influenced young Hemingway, who often went hunting and fishing with his father and had active, adventurous characters. Some people think the fishing and hunting experience in big jungle shaped Hemingway’s basic life attitude. This view seems to be reasonable in some way. [4]
After high school, Hemingway left home for Kansas City and worked as a reporter. During World War I he served in Italy and France, suffering serious injuries. He never forgot the impact of the experience. It was the passivity rather than the pain that remained a nightmare for Hemingway throughout his life. In 1922 he returned to Europe as a journalist and mixed in the literary circle in Paris led by Gertrude Stein. Influenced by this society, he became a
writer and began to attract attention. Later he took part in the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The same year he fortunately escaped death in an airplane crash. But in 1961，in ill health, anxiety and deep depression, Hemingway committed suicide with a hunting gun.
Hemingway is a very famous writer, who has written many valuable works in his lifetime. He compared his writing as “iceberg” and used “iceberg style” to summarize his own writing skills. He ever said: “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show.”
3. Specific application of iceberg style
The Old Man and the Sea is Hemingway’s representative work, which made him win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. The work reflects Hemingway’s philosophy of life. According to this philosophy, you will find the correct way of dealing with difficulties and hardships in reality and find the true meaning of human existence.
3.1 Summary of the story
The story The Old Man and the Sea is about an old fisherman named Santiago who overcomes the great forces of nature. Not catching a single fish for eighty-four days, the old fisherman still kept on trying without being despaired. He went far out into the sea and caught a huge marlin after three days’ patient struggle. [5] On his way home sharks came and attacked, Santiago tried his best to fight but failed to prevent the marlin from being eaten. In the end he returned with nothing but the skeleton of the marlin. In the novel, the fight with great marlin is one of the most memorable fights that I have ever seen. And the way Hemingway wrote the novel was just as good as the fight.
Many people still believe that the novel is about the life of Hemingway himself. This is not true, though some parts of the story do relate to what Hemingway has experienced in his life.
3.2 Hemingway’s philosophy of life reflected by the novel
3.2.1 Reflected by the old man
The old man, Santiago, is an old fisherman fishing alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream. He is the protagonist of the novel The Old Man and the Sea. The portrayal of the old man in the novel is vivid and successful, which also reflects the writer’s philosophy of life.
From novel’s depiction, a visual image of Santiago is given. He is an old-aged man, and the writer seems to emphasize his old age particularly. You can see his face and neck are wrinkled from many years in the sun; his hands are scarred from his battles with many fish; he is frail and gaunt, as if the years have tired his flesh. Apart from this, the writer also emphasizes his deep marks left by the long-year fishing life. [6] The brown blotches on his cheeks are the marks the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea. Though everything about him was old, his blue eyes remain bright, cheerful and undefeated. Santiago’s appearance shows that he is an unusual man, and he loves his fishing profession very much. Though he is old and has many scars, he never gives up fishing. And his blue eyes remain cheerful and undefeated after suffering nearly three months without a single catch. These reflect Santiago’s fine qualities and Hemingway’s life attitude in some way.
Secondly, the description of Santiago’s characters and personality also reflect Hemingway’s philosophy of life. By personality he is brave, confident, cheerful, determined and optimistic, not letting anything in life defeat him. This just reflects Hemingway’s philosophy of life. And his personality and characters can be reflected by his inner world. In this novel Santiago’s inner world is very abundant. [7] 8-10 He is different from the other heroes that Hemingway has written about. He is not only a strong man physically, but also a strong man in the mind.
3.2.2 Reflected by the settings of the novel
From the depiction, we can see the living place of Santiago is very simple and its condition is very bad. It is only a small shack with no running water. But the old man never complains living in such a simple and crude place. And with his wife being dead for many years, he has to live lonely. Maybe you will think that his life is so poor and lonely that he must lose hope towards life. But the fact is that the old man does not feel depressed or hopeless, instead, he is still hopeful of life. He refuses to be lazy, and every day he goes out for fishing. Though he lives in poverty, he never complains. The hard conditions never made him lose confidence to life. He is optimistic to live a plain and unadorned lifestyle. It well reflects Santiago’s valuable spirit and his attitude towards life. [8] 13-14
3.3 Expression of symbolism
3.3.1 Santiago
Taken as a symbol, Santiago
the fisherman remains one of the most memorable creations of modern American literature. Old but not senile, unlucky but not defeated, gentle but not soft, proud but not boastful and perhaps most important, hopeful for himself without being jealous of others, Santiago the fisherman is himself a poetry of the human spirit.
In this novel, Santiago has many good qualities. He is humble unpretentious: it doesn’t bother him at all that his shirt has been patched many times; he is content with little sometimes no food. He is persevering and full of resolution: he keeps going far out in search of a fish beyond all usual fish; when he has begun something, no matter difficulty he will meet, he will hang on to it until he is dead. And he is optimistic, full of hope and wishes: he accepts misfortune bravely; in fact, his most usual posture is that of the Stoic; “Pain does not matter to a man,” he says. [9]62 All of good qualities are just the manifestations of the human qualities.
3.3.2 Sea
In both the sea and the life, there are a number of possibilities that lie hidden from the common: some are gifts to be treasured and some are troubles to be defeated. Neither will be found unless man embarks on the journey. If man is lucky enough to discover a treasure such as love or family, he must fight until death to retain it; if man is unlucky enough to discover an evil lurking underneath the surface, he must fight against it bravely until the end. In either case, it is an important struggle that a man can obtain the status of hero if he battles with grace under pressure. In the novel, Santiago embarks on a sea journey and encounters a giant marlin. He battles nobly to earn the treasure, and then fights against sharks to save it. The struggle defines him as a real hero. Though he loses the marlin, he has won the sea battle. The sea is just like the life. Only a man faces and fights on it with courage, he can defeat the unchangeable fate and become the strong one of the life.
3.3.3 Marlin
The marlin symbolizes a man’s ideal in life. If one wants to prove himself, he must constantly struggle for his ideal in life. Only through actions conducted with dignity, he can prove his heroism and realize his life ideal. It is precisely through the effort to battle the huge marlin that Santiago proves his heroism and manliness. He finds the marlin worthy of a fight, and so he fights hard. By realizing the life ideal, he proves himself a worthy fisherman. So a heroic and manly life is not self-sufficiency; it requires constant demonstration of one’s worthiness through noble action and struggle for the ideal in life.
3.3.4 Shark
In contrast to the marlin, which stands for a good part of nature, the shark stands for the evil side of the natural world. It symbolizes the destructive force of society and world. As a result, the destructive force can motivate a man to struggle. It enables the old man to undergo a remarkable transformation and renew life through his struggle.
3.3.5 Manolin
The boy symbolizes the hope of him towards future. When Santiago is battling the marlin and sharks, he thinks of Manolin several times and wishes the boy were on the boat to help him. But more importantly, it stimulates him to prove himself to the boy. [10]57-58 So Manolin is not only Santiago’s apprentice and genuine friend, but also his hope and future. Whenever the boy rises in his thoughts, the old man is filled with confidence and strength to struggle. Because of the boy, he is hopeful of the future.
3.3.6 Lion
This symbolizes the old man’s unyielding spirit-he is still eager to prove himself, his worth and value. Santiago is undefeated just because he keeps on trying. His resolution and action help him to take whatever comes with calm and courage as well. At the end of the story, the dream about lions not only shows he is truly a hero beyond normal man, but also represents he is well to meet the new battle. [11] 109-112
3.4 Social significance of the novel
In this novel, Hemingway describes emphatically the sea and the old man’s fighting experience in it. The sea is just like American society at that time. So the novel actually reflects American social reality after the World War, and the sense of loss and despair among the post-war generation who are physically and psychologically scarred. [12] 57-58 Because of the war’s affection, many social problems emerged: poverty, class struggle etc. In front of all these conflicts and contradictions, the Americans were not as hopeful as before. In such a case, Hemingway holds that a man should face up to reality with endurance, pride, and courage, and even oppose it by his strength as a man. Just as Santiago fights against the big marlin and the sharks, people should fight against the dark world and society.
4. Conclusion
In short, The Odd Man and the Sea is an outstanding work in which Hemingway’s writing techniques has reached a ver
y high degree. The novel is rich in symbolism. It is will, pride, courage, bravery, endurance, confidence and steadfastness that decide the old man— the main character of The Old Man and the Sea to be a true winner instead of a loser. No doubt, The Old Man and the Sea is a masterpiece. However, we have to bear in mind that it has some limitations. The background in which he was brought up decides that Hemingway’s foothold is weak and narrow. [13]He only realizes and praises the struggling spirit of the individual; neither does he discover the great strength which lies in the people. That’s why the main characters in his works fail to find a way out. This decides some limitations in his writing. That’s why his hero appears just as the hero of failure. This essay, of course, deals with only some points of the masterpiece. The otter pots need further discussing and studying.
This work is the greatest work of Hemingway. In this story, Hemingway not only described the masculine, but also eulogized the human being’s eternal value. Although Santiago was alone, he was a dauntless man, and his spirit is completely a modern reverberation of the ancient Greek tragedy spirit. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway found out the soul of hard bone. On many aspects, Hemingway’s own experiences were just like Santiago’s experiences. In Santiago’s life, even if he suffers from the worst fate, he is still confident his confidence is absolute. Human being’s real victory is in spirit. Santiago’s experiences are the epitome of Hemingway’s works, and the marline is a true portrayal of Hemingway’s life.
Acknowledgements
My initial thanks go to my supervisor Mr. Zhao, who patiently supervised my dissertation and was at times very willing to offer me illuminating advice or suggestions. Without his help, I could not have finished this dissertation.
I am also indebted to other teachers and my classmates who have not only offered me their warm encouragements but also shared with me their ideas and books. They are Vivian, Wang Qi, and many others.
My greatest personal debt is to my grandparents and parents, who have cultivated a soul of sensitivity, hospitality, and honesty out of me, and offered a harbor of happiness and sweetness for me.
The remaining weakness and possible errors of the dissertation are entirely my own.
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