Characterization and Setting in The Old Man and the Sea

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“The writer’s job is to tell the truth,” is a phrase the great American author once said. Many American Writers speak true to this ideal by creating novels, poems, and short stories with strong American themes. One theme that Ernest Hemingway uses often is the theme of the “American dream”. Another theme widely used by Hemingway is the spirit of renewal. Heming way shows the American spirit of renewal through the relationship of Santiago and Manolin, his apprentice. Santiago teaches Manolin how to fish, thus showing renewal through the teaching of the nest generation. Also in the novel Hemingway writes that, “the old man was dreaming of the lions” the old man still has dreams of the lions on the shores of Africa as a young boy and how one day he’d like to see them again (Gale). With this symbolism he shows the spirit of renewal has taken place and the hope for tomorrow. Hemingway uses this novella as a symbol of hope for others and himself; he uses it to persuade others that life does not end at old age. He once said that “it isn’t hard to die,” reflecting on the slow weakening and fragility of the body through old age, which he greatly feared. The fight between the marling and Santiago is a sysmbol of the fight between life and death, and a fught between “defeating” age and “whining and complaining in a hospital bed” (Cooperman). Using setting and structure, The Old man and the Sea is a novella that shows human life in its basic elements shown by the struggle of the old man, Santiago and his hunt to end his eighty-five days of bad luck, which he uses to inspire hope and the important of persistence despite tragedy through the main character’s big dreams and ill-luck. The American author Ernest Hemingway once said, “I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to

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