Ernest Hemmingway, The Old Man and The Sea
Essay/Project:
There are two parts to this assignment.
Both parts are to be passed in on time as LATE PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
Part
1: Do ONE of the following essay questions. (50%)
1. The Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander
has said: "Into those things from which existing things have their coming
into being, their passing away, too, takes place, according to what must be;
for they make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the
ordinance of time." Discuss the notion of cosmic justice/injustice as it
appears in The Old Man and The Sea.
2. Explore The Old Man and The Sea
as a novella about the strength of the human being.
3. Explain and analyze the role and meaning
of fratricide in the Old Man and The Sea.
4. Discuss to what extent you view The
Old Man and The Sea, on the one hand, as a novel depicting "man vs.
nature," and on the other hand, to what extent it is about "man as
nature." How does Hemmingway combine these two views, and to what effect?
5. The ancient Greeks thought that the
development of character and virtue (or excellence) occurred only through
struggle, tension, and contending against a noble opponent. They called this
overcoming of obstacle through challenge agvn,
or agon, the word from which our word "agony" is derived. In The
Old Man and The Sea, Santiago goes through much "agony,"
contending with a great, noble fish. Analyze the extent to which the novel is a
representation of the contentious nature of human existence.
6. Santiago understood the sea "as
feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did
wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them." In his
view, the ocean is blameless for the wicked things that happen upon it. A
similar view is also central in the study of "theology," a term
coined by the Greek philosopher, Plato. Since Plato, most theologians have
suggested that, in all the evil things that happen in the world, "the gods
are blameless" (Republic 379bc). Investigate the manner in which
Santiago thinks about "natural evil," or the suffering that is just
given to the nature of things (as opposed to the evil inflicted by human beings
upon themselves and each other).
7. Santiago says, "Fish... I love you
and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends."
Examine the relationship between loving and killing in The Old Man and The
Sea.
Santiago contemplates the difference
between fish and human beings; he decides that, "they are not as intelligent
as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able." Discuss
what the old man means. How can fish be more noble than human beings? What does
it mean to be noble? How is intelligence related to nobility?
8. In The Old Man and The Sea, Santiago
pits his "will" and "intelligence" against the nobility and
the ability of the great fish. What are will and intelligence? Does
intelligence truly distinguish us from the animal kingdom? If so, what do we
make of the old man's constant dialogue with the fish, or of his distinctions
between smart and stupid sharks? From whence does nobility arise, if not
intelligence?
9. The old man claims not to be religious,
and yet he prays and vows to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Cobre if he
should catch the great fish. Discuss the significance of prayer in the novel,
and how one can pray, yet lack religion. What is prayer? What is religion?
10. The old man vows to kill the great,
noble fish, "although it is unjust." He hopes to show the fish
"what a man can do and what a man endures." Santiago, in this
passage, brings up the theme of achieving greatness through suffering, as well
as the relationship of human greatness to justice. How do you think greatness
and justice are related in the novel? How are they related in your own
experience? Where do they conflict in the novel? Do they ever conflict in real
life?
11. Santiago calls himself a "strange
old man." During his second day at
sea, he also calls the great fish "very strange." Explore what the
old man might possibly mean by calling himself and the fish
"strange."
12. During the second night on the boat,
Santiago thinks to himself about the fish: "The punishment of the hook is
nothing. The punishment of hunger, and that he is against something that he does
not comprehend, is everything." Explore the manner in which existence for
both the old man and the great fish is defined as a kind of punishment.
Consider the image of fishing as a metaphor for the human condition generally.
What might the hook represent? What might be meant by the punishing
"hunger" of human existence? What might be suggested by the image of
human beings struggling against the incomprehensible? Analyze the broader
implications of the fishing image in The Old Man and The Sea.
13. At various times, Santiago tells
himself to stop thinking; at other times, he tells himself to think and to
remain clear-headed. What is the relation of thought to overcoming obstacles
and meeting challenges in The Old Man and The Sea? What is the relationship of
thought with Santiago's greatness?
14. Explain what Santiago means when he
says, "pain does not matter to a man." Does this distinguish a
certain kind of man from all others? Or does Santiago mean that pain means
nothing to all men? Furthermore, does the human ability to withstand pain
somehow set us apart from other animals? Explain how you think Santiago means
this statement.
15. Santiago considers the suffering of the
fish as well as his own: "I must hold his pain where it is... Mine does
not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad." Examine
the importance of "self-control" in the story. Can a beast be noble
yet lack self-control? How is self-control related to intelligence and will?
What is the relationship between self-control and madness? Make reference to
Hemmingway's book in your answers.
16. Courage, as Aristotle notes, is a
virtue or excellence of the soul. It is a kind of "mean" or middle
ground between fear and confidence in relation to pleasures and pains; if a
person is too weak in the face of pains or what is fearful, then he is a
coward. Likewise, if a person lacks any fear or understanding of what is truly
fearful, then he is not courageous but over-confident, rash, or foolhardy.
Courage is somewhere in the middle between being cowardly, on the one hand, and
being foolhardy in the face of danger, on the other. Examine the portrayal of
the old man's virtue in the novel. To what extent is the old man brave or
courageous? What other virtues might Santiago be said to embody?
17. Towards the end of the novel, Santiago
asks of the fish, "[I]s he bringing me in or am I bringing him in?"
Discuss what makes the old man feel this way, and how Hemmingway might be using
the ambiguity of the situation to speak metaphorically about fishing.
18. Examine The Old Man and The Sea
in light of Matthew 4:19, wherein Christ says to his disciples,
"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." What does Christ
mean in this passage, and do you think Hemmingway's use of fishing in the novel
may be understood similarly in symbolic terms? If so, explain how.
19. Why does Santiago have such disdain for
the shovel-nosed "galanos" sharks, on the one hand, but
considerable respect if not admiration for the Mako "dentuso"
sharks on the other hand? Explain why "self-restraint" is an
important factor in the old man's view of sharks.
20. The old man ruminates upon the meaning
of "sin" in the novel. On the one hand, Santiago thinks that
"everything is a sin," since everything kills everything else. On the
other hand, he considers the manner in which not all kinds of fishing are
sinful, but this hunt in particular, since the defeat of the great fish arose
from his own sinful transgression of a boundary, or the violation of a kind of
natural limit to where an old man ought to fish. In essay format, consider what
is sin? Why is the notion of sin problematic for Santiago?
21. Write an essay that examines the
relationship between the old man, Santiago, and the boy, Manolin.
22. Santiago considers himself very
unlucky, but he does not despair of his bad luck, recognizing that luck comes
and goes, and that character is more important: "[W]ho knows? Maybe today.
Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact.
Then when luck comes you are ready." Examine the relationship between
character and luck in The Old Man and The Sea.
23. Herodotus' account in his Histories
of Solon's visit with Croesus. What does Solon say about happiness? Why is it
impossible to be happy, in Solon's view? What role does luck play in happiness?
How might this be illustrated by The Old Man and The Sea?
24. Humility has been defined as "the understatement of a powerful
personality." What does this mean and to what extent does it apply to the
kind of humility the old man has attained.
25. Discuss the role that luck plays in
this book and consider the different shades of meaning Hemingway gives to it.
26. Where is the one passage in the book
that unmistakably alludes to Christ on the Cross? What does such symbolism add
to the novel? Do you find any other passages that may be reinforcing the Christ
imagery? Can you be sure that they are doing so? The old man is sometimes taken
as a symbol of Christ on the Cross. How do you reconcile this notion with the
old man's own comment on page 64, "I am not religious," which he
follows up with a perfunctory rattling off of a batch of "Our
Fathers" and "Hail Marys"?
27. How much convincing evidence do you
find for regarding the fish as more than just a marlin? If the fish is a
symbol, what does he symbolize?
28. Are we justified in interpreting
baseball and Joe DiMaggio as more than their literal selves? If so, what do
they represent?
29. Does Hemingway encourage us to think of
the sea in more than literal terms? If so, what is the sea standing for?
30. How do you interpret the young lions?
Are they literal or symbolic or both, and why do you think so? If they are
symbolic, what do they symbolize?
31. The great fish come in September, not
in May. Santiago catches his big fish in September. Are we to take September
only literally? If it is more than literal, what is it standing for?
32. Does Hemingway's text invite us to
interpret the sharks as more than literal? If they are more than literal, what
do they represent? What is their role in the general human drama?
33. Write a paper in which you comment
fully and specifically on the significance for the entire book of Santiago's
words, "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." To do this, you
will need to start with an exploration of possible meanings of the two words
destroyed and defeated.
34. Write a full, detailed answer to this
question: "Were you satisfied that the ending of Hemingway's book makes a
believable, meaningful, and moving fulfilment of the old man's experience?"
For this paper, consider the ending to include all that takes place from the
time the first shark comes to the time of the old man's final dreaming of the
young lions.
35. Write a carefully planned paper in
which you explore the meaning and the appropriateness of Hemingway's title. In
doing this, you will need to examine carefully each word of the title and you
will also need to consider other possible titles that Hemingway might have
used.
36. A character in John Steinbeck's East
of Eden says, "No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in
ourselves that it is true, and true of us...If a story is not about the hearer
he will not listen." It might at first seem strange that you might find
anything "true" about yourself in The Old Man and the Sea, but
some of your contemporaries have "listened" to this story as if it
were about themselves. Write a carefully prepared paper in which you consider
what the book has to say to you, where you came in, what you heard about
yourself as you "listened." Choose this topic only if you honestly
feel that the book had something to say to you.
37. In the Preface to one of his novels,
Joseph Conrad says that his task as a writer is "by the power of the
written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make
you see. That--and no more, and it is everything." Write a
carefully prepared paper in which you show fully and specifically the extent to
which Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea fulfils the writer's task of
making you hear, feel, and--above all--see. You will want to give
special attention to all the possible meanings in that word see.
38. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated,” says the old man after
the first shark attack. At the end of the story, is the old man defeated? Why
or why not?
39. Discuss religious symbolism
in The Old Man and the Sea. To what
effect does Hemingway employ such images?
40. What is the role of the sea
in The Old Man and the Sea?
41. Santiago is considered by
many readers to be a tragic hero, in that his greatest strength—his pride—leads
to his eventual downfall. Discuss the role of pride in Santiago’s plight.
42. The Old Man and the Sea is, essentially, the story of a single character. Indeed, other
than the old man, only one human being receives any kind of prolonged
attention. Discuss the role of Manolin in the novella. Is he necessary to the
book?
Part
2: Do ONE of the following projects. (50%)
1. Create a comic book version of The
Old Man and the Sea. Your comic book should follow the literary plot of
the original. It should also be illustrated and be no less than 3 pages. You
will share your book with the class.
2. Do a character study of DiMaggio. Make a
poster that illustrates why DiMaggio was a great baseball player, and explore
the reasons why Santiago would look to DiMaggio as a kind of heroic figure.
3. Do some research some on the animals
that appear in The Old Man and The Sea (ex.: Portuguese man-of-war,
shovel-nosed "galanos" sharks, Mako, or "dentuso" sharks,
marlins, sea turtles, dolphins, shrimp, and flying fish). Make a poster that
thoughtfully provides information about some of these animals, and that relates
your zoological research back to the novel.
4. Write a movie review of the Emmy
award-winning 1990 made for TV movie version of The Old Man and The Sea
(Director Jud Taylor). Be sure to detail what you thought was good about the
movie, as well as what you thought was bad about it. Was the movie true to the
book? Did it leave too much out? Did it add things that took away from the
book's message? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate this movie?
5. Write a movie review of the
Oscar-winning 1958 version of The Old Man and The Sea (Director: John
Sturges). Be sure to detail what you thought was good about the movie, as well
as what you thought was bad about it. Was the movie true to the book? Did it
leave too much out? Did it add things that took away from the book's message?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate this movie?
6. Create a piece of masterly artwork that
illustrates a scene from The Old Man and The Sea.
7. Do some oceanographic research on the
area of the ocean that is described as the setting for the novel. Create a
poster that tells something about aquatic life, ocean currents and other
climatological factors, as well as fishing industry, any major fishing and
marine ports, islands and shipping lanes in the area. Provide a well-labelled
oceanographic map of the area.