The Old Man And The Sea

1485 Words6 Pages
The Real Heroes In the book The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway establishes many ideals about life. Hemingway, through this book, is trying to show the world have to view and live your life and the people’s around you. Hemingway’s ideas about how to live life are shown in the Old Man’s love of baseball and his idol Joe DiMaggio, his struggle with the fish, his relationship with the young boy, Manolin, the respect the boy has for the old man, and the comparison between the Old Man and Jesus are all principles that Hemingway incorporates into the book. Hemingway used the Old Man’s journey throughout the story to show who the real heroes are in the world, everyday people who work hard and do the right thing because he doesn’t believe that the DiMaggio’s aren’t as capable of the important things in life as the people like Santiago. Santiago’s trip is an analogy to life and how it should be lived. First thing everyone needs is a goal, without it nothing can be achieved, and Santiago’s was to catch the marlin. The marlin was his goal because of his giant size and because he respects the fish and its determination, Santiago describes the fish, “Now alone and out of sight of land, he was fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of” (Hemingway 63). The fish might be the biggest marlin he had ever seen but that’s not the reason why he respects him; he respects him because of his extraordinary determination to fight until his last breath. Second, Hemingway, through his writing, believes that you need to be proud of yourself but continue to work to be even better. The Old Man does exactly that and thinks of how everyone would be so proud of his catch, but he especially thinks of what DiMaggio, his hero, would think of his great achievement: “I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.” (Hemingway 97) DiMaggio
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