Values and Attitudes- Old Man and The Sea

In writing the Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway portrays himself through the main character in the book, the old man.  As you read the book, the author shows the old man as a very compassionate, determined, and faithful person and fisherman.  The old man and the young boy have a very close relationship.  Despite the old man's unfortunate luck, the young boy insists on fishing with him.  As a human being you never want to tell somebody no, but the old man can not let the boy come with him.  He wants to see the boy succeed and have fun in catching fish, and you can not do that if you are not catching fish.  Nobody wants to go out to see alone but the old man shows kind heartedly tells the boy to fish with somebody else. Going along the journey with the old man you begin to feel the pain he is going through.  You begin to get tired and start telling him through the book to let the fish go(well that is what I did).  As the old man suffers through the journey, I began to think what would I do if I was in his situation.  I'm miles away from home, I do not have much food or water, and I am all alone.  I would have cut the line and turned back.  The old man shows his determination by   persevering through the pain and fighting against the fish.  If you have not caught a fish for eighty-four days I guess you would not want to lose the biggest you have ever hooked(Hemingway, 9).  Faithful is usually thought of as having faith in God, but the old man was a faithful fisherman.  He continued on fishing, even though he was going on a "cold streak."  His life was fishing and he loved doing it, so he stuck with it.  He looked forward to each day(Hemingway, 10).  Evan though the luck was not his he stuck with it and persevered. The author writes the story in third person, even though much of the time is stuck talking about one character. 

Bibliography

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.