"The Old Man and the Sea": the philosophical meaning of the story, the strength of the old man's character.

/ / / The image of Santiago in Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea"

The image of Santiago in the novel by Ernest Hemingway surprises with its depth.

Santiago is an old fisherman who has been living alone for a long time, but does not lose heart. The author characterizes him as a man with "cheerful eyes who does not give up." The hero often remembers the days of his youth, he dreams of young lions that frolic on the shores of Africa. The time of adventure has passed, and all that is left for the old man is the sea, into which he goes out to feed and little friend named Manolino. The friendship of the boy and the old man shows the connection of generations. The fact that between people with similar views, the difference in age is not important. Santiago feels that Manolino is just as passionate about the romance of the sea as he is.

Through his protagonist, the author expresses his own philosophical ideas, for example: "A man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated." To this conclusion main character came thanks to a big life experience. The writer shows that only a person who has known difficulties has the strength to fight.

Santiago lives ordinary life, in his modest world, from which he does not run away, like many other heroes of the author. He does not need to seek solitude with nature, he is part of nature. In the image of Santiago, the writer saw harmonious person. It combines humility and pride, the ability to be content with little and the desire for a dream. He did not know when humility came to him, but he was sure that it did not bring him shame. The old man did not lose his self-respect, although he lived in poverty. felt sorry for a friend and sometimes brought fish and newspapers with sports news.

surprises life position hero, according to which each creature has its own role in the world. Here he is born to be a fisherman, just like a fish is born to be a fish.

The plot of the story is based on several days from the life of the protagonist. Events develop slowly, there are not many of them, but they are described in detail and very realistically - so that the reader seems to be sitting with the fisherman in the boat and sees everything that happens.

The story begins with the fact that Santiago has been unsuccessfully going to sea for 84 days. It seems that luck has turned away from the fisherman. But the hero does not give up and believes that he will be lucky on the 85th day, he just needs to sail away from the coast, take a risk - and then he will catch the fish of his dreams. The author describes the three days spent by the old man at sea. During this time, Santiago shows willpower, endurance, overcoming pain. He catches fish so as not to starve, talks to a bird, and then to a fish, so as not to go crazy. He catches a marlin on a hook, but the fish is too big - and therefore the old man is forced to hold the line, and gradually drag it to the shore. It hurts him, the fishing line cuts his hand, but he endures, because he cannot lose to the fish. It is amazing how the old man treats marlin, not as a catch, but as an equal to himself. It's just fate: he is a fisherman, and she is a fish. Which means he can't let her go.

Unfortunately, sharks attack the fish - and the hero pulls out only its skeleton to the shore. But the writer shows that the hero did not lose, because he proved his courage.

Old Santiago lives in a small fishing village in Cuba and fishes all by himself. Last time he spent 84 days at sea, but did not catch anything. Previously, the boy Manolin, who helped the old man a lot, fished with him, but the boy's parents decided that Santiago was unlucky, and ordered his son to go to sea on another boat.

The old man taught Manolin how to fish, and the boy loves Santiago and wants to help him. He buys him sardines for bait, brings food to his hut. The old man had long since come to terms with his poverty.

He was too simple-hearted to think about when humility came to him. But he knew that humility came without bringing shame or loss. human dignity.

They talk to the boy about fishing and famous baseball players. At night, the old man dreams of the Africa of his youth, and "the lions coming ashore."

The next day, early in the morning, the old man goes fishing. The boy helps him pull down the sail, prepare the boat. The old man says that this time he "believes in luck".

One by one, fishing boats leave the shore and go to sea. The old man loves the sea, he thinks of it with tenderness, like a woman. Having put the bait on the hooks, Santiago slowly swims with the flow, mentally communicating with birds and fish. Accustomed to loneliness, the old man talks aloud to himself.

Before, left alone, he sang; he sometimes sang at night, when he was on watch, when he went on big sailboats or hunted turtles.

The old man knows different inhabitants of the ocean and treats them very tenderly.

First, Santiago catches a small tuna. He hopes that there is a big fish walking around the school of tuna, who will like his sardines. Soon the old man notices a slight tremor of a flexible green rod, which replaces his fishing rod. The fishing line goes down, and the old man feels the enormous weight of the pecking fish.

The old man tries to pull up a thick fishing line, but he fails - a large and strong fish pulls a light boat behind him. The old man regrets that the boy is not with him - he could take the bait from other rods while Santiago fights with the fish.

It takes about four hours. Evening is coming. The old man's hands are cut, he throws the fishing line on his back and puts a bag under it. Now Santiago can lean against the side of the boat and get some rest.

It is impossible for a person to remain alone in old age ... However, this is inevitable.

Night. The fish pulls the boat farther from the shore. The old man is tired, but the thought of the fish does not leave him for a second. Sometimes he feels sorry for her - the fish, so big, strong and old, must die so that he can live on. Santiago is talking to the fish: "I will not part with you until I die."

The old man's strength is running out, and the fish is not going to get tired. At dawn, Santiago eats tuna - he has no other food. left hand the old man is cramping. The old man hopes that the fish will surface, and then he can kill it with a harpoon. Finally, the forest goes up, and fish are shown on the surface. She burns in the sun, her head and back are dark purple, and instead of a nose she has a sword as long as a baseball bat. It is two feet longer than the boat.

Alone, on the high seas, he was firmly tied to such big fish which he had never seen, which he had never even heard of.

Having appeared on the surface, the fish again goes into the depths, pulling the boat along with it, and the old man gathers strength to keep it. Not believing in God, he reads "Our Father".

Another day passes. To distract himself, the old man reminisces about baseball games. He remembers how once in a Casablanca tavern he measured his strength with a mighty Negro, the most strong man in the port, how they sat at the table for a whole day, not lowering their hands, and how he, in the end, gained the upper hand. He participated in such fights more than once, won, but then gave up this business, deciding that he needed his right hand for fishing.

The battle with the fish continues. Santiago keeps the woods right hand, knowing that when the forces run out, it will be replaced by the left one, the cramp in which has long since passed. A mackerel comes across a small fishing rod. The old man reinforces his strength with it, although this fish is completely tasteless. He feels sorry for the big fish, which has nothing to eat, but the determination to kill it does not decrease from this.

It's good that we don't have to kill the sun, moon and stars. It is enough that we extort food from the sea and kill our brothers.

At night, the fish comes to the surface and begins to walk in circles, then approaches the boat, then moves away from it. This is a sign that the fish is tired. The old man is preparing a harpoon to finish off the fish. But she steps aside. From fatigue, thoughts are confused in the old man’s head, and black spots dance before his eyes. Santiago gathers the last of his strength and plunges the harpoon into the side of the fish.

And then the fish came to life, although it already carried death in itself, - it rose high above the water, as if showing off its enormous length and width, all its beauty and power.

Overcoming nausea and weakness, the old man ties the fish to the side of the boat and turns towards the shore. The direction of the wind tells him which way to swim to get home.

An hour passes before the first shark is shown, having come to the smell of blood. She approaches the stern and begins to tear the fish with her teeth. The old man hits her with a harpoon in the most vulnerable spot on the skull. She sinks to the bottom, taking with her a harpoon, part of the rope and a huge piece of fish.

Santiago kills two more sharks with a knife tied to an oar. These sharks take at least a quarter of the fish with them. On the fourth shark, the knife breaks, and the old man takes out a strong club.

He knew that every shark push against the boat meant a piece of torn meat and that the fish now left a trail in the sea as wide as a highway and accessible to all sharks in the world.

The next group of sharks attacks the boat before sunset. The old man drives them away with club blows on the heads, but at night they return. Santiago fights the predators first with a club, then with a sharp fragment of the tiller. Finally, the sharks swim away: they have nothing else to eat.

The old man enters the bay at his hut in the dead of night. Taking off the mast and tying the sail, he wanders to the house, feeling incredibly tired. For a moment, the old man turns around and sees behind the stern of his boat a huge tail of a fish and a reflection of a white ridge.

A boy comes to the old man's hut. Santiago is sleeping. The boy cries when he sees his wounded palms. He brings coffee to the old man, reassures him and assures him that from now on they will fish together, because he still has a lot to learn. He believes that he will bring good luck to the old man.

In the morning, fishermen look with amazement at the remains of a giant fish. Rich tourists come to the shore. They are surprised to notice a long white spine with a huge tail. The waiter tries to tell them what happened, but they do not understand anything - they are too far from this life.

And the old man is sleeping at this time, and he dreams of lions.

Santiago is a lonely and very old fisherman with "the cheerful eyes of a man who does not give up." He has long been living only in memories of his youth and dreams of the shores of Africa he once saw, "playing young lions." Santiago befriends the neighbor boy Manolino, sensing in him the same romantic soul and fascination with the sea. And in the mouth of this old Cuban, who has lost his former strength, wise by experience, the author puts heartfelt words: "... a person was not created to suffer defeat ... A person can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated." In these words there is a great philosophical generalization that came to the writer and his hero after many years of work, a hard life in which there were many victories and defeats, hopes and disappointments, love and hatred. Old Santiago lives in his own world. He does not run away from civilization, like other heroes of Hemingway, does not seek salvation in nature. Santiago has been hers since the day he was born. He not only lived long life in unity with nature, with the sea - he is a particle of this world of nature. In the old man, the author finally found that harmonic hero whom he had been looking for throughout his entire life. creative life. In Santiago, both humility and pride are successfully combined: “He was too simple-hearted to think about when humility came to him. But he knew that humility came without bringing shame or loss of human dignity.” The old man knows exactly why he was born into the world: "You were born to become a fisherman, like a fish was born to be a fish."

Romantically elevated and laconic, Hemingway describes three days in the life of Santiago, who went to sea after a series of setbacks and finally caught a big fish. Entering one-on-one with her in a fierce confrontation, in the most difficult moments, at the limit of human strength, he repeats: "Fight ... fight until I die." This duel, with all its vicissitudes, when victory leans to one side or the other, more and more begins to resemble the exploits of the heroes of myths. real hero myth must fight alone, only then can he show all his courage, stamina, courage, skill. Santiago's endurance and endurance win, he survived, overcame his weakness and old age. However, his fishing trophy is attacked by sharks. The old man fights them with all his might, he doesn't want to give up. That's when he says his famous words about a man who "can be destroyed" but "cannot be defeated." Having reached the shore, Santiago returns to his miserable hut. The caught fish is completely torn to pieces and gnawed by sharks. But the old man's victory is clear. The return of Santiago to the village also marks the end of loneliness - the boy Manolino will not leave the fisherman alone, in addition, he has a lot to learn from Santiago, his older friend.

The writing

SANTIAGO (eng. Santiago) - the hero of E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952). real prototypes considered Fernando Manuel Peredos (nicknamed Gallego), Anselmo Hernando, Grigorio Fuentes, the captain of Hemingway's boat. Hemingway himself wrote that he reflected "the character traits of an old fisherman acquaintance from Casablanca." It can be said that S.- collective image fisherman from the northern coast of Cuba, in the area of ​​Cojimar. At the same time, this is an image-symbol in which romantic and folklore motifs. S. absorbed the best qualities 363 human soul - kindness, steadfastness, courage. His simple-hearted, natural heroism is based on an amazing interweaving of humility and pride, which allows him to endure hardships and not admit defeat. S. is defeated, but does not submit. He is related to the heroes of J. London and F. Cooper, has a rare endurance and determination. The impulse of his actions is the natural human right to food, the pride of the "natural fisherman". In the image of S., the features of the Hemingway hero-player are preserved, but the rules of the game acquire a higher, metaphysical meaning. Criticism accused S. of pessimism and fatalism. The idea was expressed that S. lost, because he went beyond the threshold set for a person, that in the image of S. Hemingway condemns the “presumptuous” individualism, which only brings destruction (M. Schorer, K. Burhans). Meanwhile, S. embodies the type of person who does not seek only to take from nature, but who has taken his natural position in it, in the harmony of its eternal circulation. S.'s connection with the giant fish he caught, which he "loves", is indissoluble. The struggle with it and with the sharks that take prey from S. is an endless dispute between man and nature. S. does not fish, but, as it were, acts as a priest, performing the prescribed ritual. In this he is similar to the hero of "Moby Dick" G. Melville. Similar motifs can be traced in V. Astafiev (“Tsar-fish”, 1976). W. Faulkner wrote that before S. Hemingway's heroes created themselves from clay as strong as they could be, but here Hemingway "found" the Creator who created S., a big fish, sharks that were supposed to devour this fish, and God loves them all. (K.Baker considered Hemingway's story as a biblical parable, correlating the image of S. with the person of Jesus Christ.) In the image of S., the motive of teaching is important: the boy, S.'s assistant, is sure that S. is able to teach "everything in the world" and the main thing in life. It is no coincidence that Hemingway called his story "a message young generation”(in a television interview after the presentation Nobel Prize, which the writer was awarded in 1954 for this work).

Lit.: Baker C. Hemingway; the writer as artist Princeton, 1963; Panorov Yu.M. Hemingway in Cuba. M., 1982; Fuentes N. Hemingway in Cuba. M., 1988; see also the literature for the article "Jake Warne".

Other writings on this work

Santiago

SANTIAGO (eng. Santiago) - the hero of E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea" (1952). The real prototypes are Fernando Manuel Peredos (nicknamed Gallego), Anselmo Hernando, Grigorio Fuentes, the captain of Hemingway's boat. Hemingway himself wrote that he reflected "the character traits of an old fisherman acquaintance from Casablanca." We can say that S. is a collective image of a fisherman from the northern coast of the island of Cuba, in the area of ​​Cojimar. At the same time, this is an image-symbol in which romantic and folklore motifs are strong. S. absorbed the best qualities of the human soul - kindness, steadfastness, courage. His simple-hearted, natural heroism is based on an amazing interweaving of humility and pride, which allows him to endure hardships and not admit defeat. S. is defeated, but does not submit. He is related to the heroes of J. London and F. Cooper, has a rare endurance and determination. The impulse of his actions is the natural human right to food, the pride of the "natural fisherman". In the image of S., the features of the Hemingway hero-player are preserved, but the rules of the game acquire a higher, metaphysical meaning. Criticism accused S. of pessimism and fatalism. The idea was expressed that S. lost because he went beyond the threshold set for a person, that in the image of S. Hemingway condemns the “presumptuous” individualism, which only brings destruction (M. Schorer, K. Burhans). Meanwhile, S. embodies the type of person who does not seek only to take from nature, but who has taken his natural position in it, in the harmony of its eternal circulation. S.'s connection with the giant fish he caught, which he "loves", is indissoluble. The struggle with it and with the sharks that take prey from S. is an endless dispute between man and nature. S. does not fish, but, as it were, acts as a priest, performing the prescribed ritual. In this he is similar to the hero of "Moby Dick" G. Melville. Similar motifs can be traced in V. Astafiev (“Tsar-fish”, 1976). W. Faulkner wrote that before S. Hemingway's heroes created themselves from clay as strong as they could be, but here Hemingway "found" the Creator who created S., a big fish, sharks that were supposed to devour this fish, and God loves them all. (K.Baker considered Hemingway's story as a biblical parable, correlating the image of S. with the person of Jesus Christ.) In the image of S., the motive of teaching is important: the boy, S.'s assistant, is sure that S. is able to teach "everything in the world" and the main thing in life. It is no coincidence that Hemingway called his story "a message to the younger generation" (in a television interview after the Nobel Prize, which the writer was awarded in 1954. for this piece).

Lit.: Baker C. Hemingway; the writer as artist Princeton, 1963; Panorov Yu.M. Hemingway in Cuba. M., 1982; Fuentes N. Hemingway in Cuba. M., 1988; see also the literature for the article "Jake Warne".

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