《老人与海》之人与自然 --毕业论文

【标题】《老人与海》之人与自然

【作者】罗丽娜

【关键词】人与自然；和谐；冲突

【指导老师】许奋荣

【专业】英语

【正文】

I. Introduction

A. A Brief Introduction to the Author

Ernest Hemingway, an American writer of novels and short stories, was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Chicago. Hemingway, as one of the most famous American writers of the twentieth century, began his writing career for The Kansas City Star in 1917. With the appearance of The Sun Also Rise in 1926, Hemingway became the voice of “lost generation”. His narratives frequently contain masculine motifs, such as bull-fighting Death in the Afternoon, hunting The Green Hills of Africa, war A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and fishing The Old Man and the Sea. All of these motifs derive from Hemingway’s own experiences as a traveler and an adventurer. In 1961, he died, by suicide, in Ketchum.

B. Background and Synopsis of the Work

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by Ernest Hemingway written in Cuba in 1951and published in 1952. It is Hemingway’s masterpiece, and it is also a classical works in the history of literature. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. In The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway presents old age facing life and death with courage, hope, and wisdom. For all its apparent simplicity it is a work of consummate art. The old Man and the Sea as Hemingway’s most popular work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, and in 1954 Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life. There’s no complicated plot, but it indicated a lot. Hemingway has said “I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things”.1It’s an aesthetic work; the key point is that the author endowed it deep soul, pushed readers to ponder it over. The novel The Old Man and the Sea figured a classic tough guy, the old fisher, Santiago, after failing to catch any fish during eighty four days, finally he got a huge marlin alone in the sea, but the fish was too big that it dragged his small boat about three days. Finally the fish wore out and was killed by

Santiago. On the way back, a shark attacked him and only the head and tail of the fish was left in the end. It was a profound classic tragedy as well as a touching song of praise to heroism.

II. The Harmony between Man and Nature

Hemingway was successful. He made the sea, the tiny boat, the old man and the kid dance in front of us vividly and harmoniously. Furthermore, from these apparent things, we were touched deep inside. A ship traveled to the end of the world, bearing up for the unknown sea. There’s hanging a flag on the fore, on which shining for words----- surpassing the limit. The author Hemingway remarked his work the Old Man and the Sea in this way. This is a beautiful picture, is a harmonious picture, with emphasis on the harmonious relationship between man and nature. This relationship is noted as being depending on each other for existence instead of conquest, obedience, or worship.

A. The Harmony between the Old Man and the Sea

The sea of the story lies out beyond Havana, Cuba. It is vast, majestic, and timeless, calm for much of the year, feeling the benign influences of the trade winds and the Gulf Stream. The sea is the central character in the story. It plays a very important role in the story. Most of the story takes place on the sea, and the old man is constantly identified with it and its creatures; the old man loves its beauty, power, and mystery. “He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her.”2 On this timeless stream the old man spends most of his waking hours. He says “It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.”3 His sea-colored eyes reflect both the sea’s tranquility and power, and its inhabitants are his brothers. The old man refers the sea as a woman. People refer to the sea as a woman when they love her. When they view her as an enemy and rival, though, they refer to her as a man, but Santiago didn’t think so. Despite the sea is an enemy, the ocean is important in that it indicates that while the sea may bring fortune. There are many sentences and paragraphs in the book describing the old man’s feeling about the sea. At the beginning of the novel, it opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice Mandolin has been forbidden with him. Rants to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Everything is unlucky, but in the book there is a sentence “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”4 From the sentence we can see the old man loves the sea, and considers that he is one part of the sea. The

Santiago’s start into the sea is an excellent demonstration of Hemingway’s descriptive art in its successive engagement of various senses. First, there is smell “The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the

ocean.”5 Next, there is sight“He saw the phosphorescence of the Gulf weed in the water.” 6 And lastly, there is hearing“he heard the trembling sound as the flying fish left the water”.7 This use of different sensory imagery helps create a powerful description of the sea. Man and man will always yield strife, but man and woman, Santiago and the sea, complement each other and create a peaceable unity. Different from other fishermen, the old man loves the sea but he always calls her la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. The old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors. From the sentence we can see the relationship between the old man and the sea is as deep as brotherhood. He loved the sea deeply. However, at the same time the sea is temperamental and emotional. Sometimes the sea can be very cruel and comes so suddenly. Those birds fly, with their small sad voices, and they are too delicately to fight against the sea. But the man shows great forgiveness to her. “If she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.”8 the sea seems to represent the feminine complement to Santiago's masculinity. The sea might also be seen as the unconscious from which creative ideas are drawn. In some reference, the sea is the sea there is no symbolism. The relationship between the old man and the sea is the relationship between the human and the nature.

It was light and the sun rose from the sea; the old man appreciated the seascape. The water was of a dark blue color; the sunshine came on the water and then made the strange light; the red sifting of the plankton shuttled in the dark water; the purple bladder of man-of-war formalized iridescent. Everything is good; everything is beautiful; all of those just like a harmony and beautiful watercolor, which made the old man peaceful and cheerful. In a word, the old man and the sea were friendly and harmonious before killing the huge marlin.

B. The Harmony between the Old Man and the Fishes

Santiago loves nature; loves sea; loves fish. Fish are our brothers. He loves green turtles and hawk-bills with their elegance and speed. He knew all the different kinds of fishes, he could tell the difference between the blowing noise the male made and the sighting blow of the female. The fishes are his good old friends. He knew about them very much. At the same time he thought the fishes are great, beautiful, glorious and noble. After hooking the huge marlin, he is wonderful and strange. Then, as if on cue, Santiago begins to feel sorry for the marlin he has hooked. And then he remembered he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fish feed first and hooked, all the time the male had stayed with her, he was beautiful and he had stayed. Santiago is saddened deeply by this demonstration of devotion. The more he identifies with the sea and its creatures, the more despicable his actions become. Santiago loves them so they begged her pardon.

During the battle, though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. The old man determines that because of the fish’s great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. In the sea, Santiago and the Marlin become united out at sea. The old man had stayed with him a day, a night, a day and another night while the fish swam deep and pulled the boat. Although Marlin does not speak and we do not have access to his thoughts, the marlin is larger and more spirited than any Santiago has ever seen. Santiago idealizes the marlin, ascribing to it traits of great nobility, a fish to which he must prove his own nobility if he is to be worthy enough to catch it. They are attached to each other physically, and in Santiago’s case, emotionally. He respects and loves the Marlin and admires its beauty and greatness. He sees the fish as his brother. When he sees the first shark he says “He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fas t as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as the sword fish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome”.9 Santiago thinks the shark is beautiful. He sees the fish as his brother.

III. The Conflict between Man and Nature

This is beautiful landscape, but Santiago knew his purpose is to catch fish. It is sure there is a battle between Santiago and nature. Hemingway spends a good deal of time drawing conflict between Santiago and his natural environment: the fish, birds, and the sea. He eats turtle eggs for strength, drinks shark liver oil for health, etc. Also, apparently contradictory elements are repeatedly shown as aspects of one unified whole: the sea is kind but cruel; the shark is noble but a cruel. At beginning, he focuses on this unity and sees himself as part of the sea, but now he sees himself as an external antagonist competing with it.

A. The Conflict between the Old Man and the Sea

After earning money on the other boat, Manolin asks Santiago if he can return to the old man’s service. Santiago refuses the boy, telling him to mind his parents and stay with the successful boat. Manolin offers to fetch sardines for the old man, an offer which Santiago first refuses and then accepts. It tells us that Santiago is too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. He is a successful fisherman but now he has gone eighty-four days without a catch. The sea causes him success, but now he is a failure. He loves the sea at the same time he hates the sea.

The old man not only is dependent on the sea but also struggles with the sea. He not only obtains the survival skills from the sea, but also gets friends and opponents from the sea. The sea is his battle site and the sea

is the place of his life.

At the beginning of the novel, there is disharmony in the Old Man and the Sea. Eighty-four days pass and still Santiago has not caught a fish in the familiar waters of the Gulf of Mexico north of his seacoast village in Cuba. Madolin has shared his bad fortune, but after the fortieth luckless day the boy’s father tell his son to go in another boat. The sea makes him lose his good friend. The sea is kind but cruel. At this time he thought the sea is his enemy. The hunger, cold and loneliness make the old man feel helpless. Santiago has lost a pillar to the brink of collapse. He worked alone at sea; each morning he rowed his skiff out into the Gulf Stream where the big fish was. Each evening he came in empty-handed, he is lonely. The sea is kind and very beautiful, eventually giving the old one of the huge Marlin which has two feet longer than the boat. However, the sea is cruel –that group of sharks takes his fish and smashes his glory. The loneliness and failure of Santiago is connected with the sea.

The sea is the place of his life and the sea is his battle site. Everyday the old man has to set out to sea to earn his living, so his work is hooking fish. Eighty-four days passed, but Santiago has not caught a fish, everyone looks down upon him in his village. He feels sad; the sea leads to his failure. In the eyes of Santiago the sea is not kindly and friendly. There is not harmonious between the sea and him.

B. The Conflict between the Old Man and the Fishes

From the very first paragraph, Santiago is characterized as someone struggling against defeat. He has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish—he will soon pass his own record of eighty-seven days. Almost as a reminder of Santiago’s struggle, the sail of his skiff resembles the flag of permanent defeat. But the old man refuses defeat at every turn: he resolves to sail out beyond the other fishermen to where the biggest fish promise to be. He lands the marlin, tying his record of eighty-seven days after a brutal three-day fight, and he continues to ward off sharks from stealing his prey, even though he knows the battle is useless.

A heroic man like Santiago should have pride in his actions, as Santiago shows us that humility was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. Because Santiago is pitted against the creatures of the sea, the novella is not only a chronicle of man’s battle against the natural world, but also is the story of man’s place within nature. Both Santiago and the marlin display qualities of pride, honor, and bravery, and both are subject to the same eternal law. They must kill or be killed. As Santiago reflects when he watches the weary warbler fly toward shore, where it will inevitably meet the hawk, the world is filled with predators, and no living thing can escape the inevitable struggle that will lead to its death. Santiago lives according to his own observation “man is not made for defeat; man can b e destroyed but not defeated.”10 Accordingly, man and fish will struggle to the death; just as hungry sharks will lay waste to an old man’s trophy catch.