Symbolism at Sea

One morning in early fall an elder fisherman, cursed with months of bad luck finally hooks a catch, however, little does he realize the adventure has just begun. In the novel The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway takes his readers on a journey across the ocean with the elder fisherman, Santiago, as he faces the many challenges the sea throws at him. In his work the author incorporates many symbolic references that look to nature for a basis as they each symbolize the cycle of life, from youth to old age and finally life to death. Several of these examples deal with sharks, a great fish, and lions on a yellow beach.

Whenever Santiago wished to find a happy place he often turned to a memory, from back in his youth, of lions on a yellow beach. The significant importance of this beach and especially the lions is that they both symbolize happiness and youth. In fact the old man mostly dreamed about "the long yellow beach . . . [full of] lions . . . [where] he [sometimes] waited to see if there would be more" (Hemingway 81) and in his dreams the lions often "played like young cats in the dusk" (Hemingway 25). Whenever he dreams of or thinks about the lions "he was happy" (Hemingway 81). This is probably because they, in his mind, symbolize his youth and whenever he thinks or dreams about them they would bring back memories of his youthful day, back in a time when he was strong and freely able to travel the world. These are the days that he would always want to remember. In other words, the lions can be interpreted as Santiago's window of sanctity in a cold and hard world full of daily hardships and challenges that need to be overcome.

One of these implied challenges has to do with Santiago's later encounter with a pack of sharks that Hemingway uses as a way to express death or a final defeat. This is because as an external force, the sharks were the antagonists who took the fish away from the old man thus destroying all that he worked so hard to achieve. However by taking the fish back into the sea "they beat [the old man]" (Hemingway 124), and take with them not only the fish but also all of Santiago's energy including his will to live. This is because the old man gave it his all to catch the marlin, only to loose it to a pack of hungry sharks. In addition the sharks symbolize the returning of the fish back into the sea. The returning of the fish back to the sea is important because by eating the entire fish the sharks back what both the old man and nature believed it belonged in the first place, the sea. In the end the sharks ended up contradicting the old mans belief as they carried out only nature's wishes thus preventing the fish from ever leaving the sea, while in the process destroying any possible chance for the old man's survival.

The fish can have many interpretations but one of the most noticeable would have to be Hemingway's comparison between