The true meanings of success and failure, victory and defeat, and life itself, are explored by Ernest Hemingway in this novella The Old Man and the Sea that won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize, and was a major factor in Hemingway winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.
Throughout The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is given heroic proportions. He is "a strange old man,"7 still powerful and still wise in all the ways of his trade. After he hooks the great marlin, he fights him with epic skill and endurance, showing "what a man can do and what a man endures" (p. 64). And when the sharks come, he is determined "to fight them until I die" (p. 116), because he knows that "a man is not made for defeat. . . . A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (p. 103). The struggle of the old man alone to defeat a fish larger than his boat, and the unexpected fight back from nature, are the core of the book. Hemingway elegantly combines the tactical battle between man and fish with the grander strategic tension between man and nature, and gently raises questions about all our struggles for growth and achievement, both internal and external.
Throughout The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is given heroic proportions. He is "a strange old man,"7 still powerful and still wise in all the ways of his trade. After he hooks the great marlin, he fights him with epic skill and endurance, showing "what a man can do and what a man endures" (p. 64). And when the sharks come, he is determined "to fight them until I die" (p. 116), because he knows that "a man is not made for defeat. . . . A man can be destroyed but not defeated" (p. 103). The struggle of the old man alone to defeat a fish larger than his boat, and the unexpected fight back from nature, are the core of the book. Hemingway elegantly combines the tactical battle between man and fish with the grander strategic tension between man and nature, and gently raises questions about all our struggles for growth and achievement, both internal and external.
Conclusion:-
In short, the difference between victory and defeat is not determined by size, strength or power but by will, determination and desire. As long as you have the latter, victory is within your reach.
From Santiago's character, I learn one thing, never give up. In life, it happens most of the time; that we fail to face the present, exactly that happened with Santiago when going far for fishing and he came back with a fish eaten by the sharks. Good days and bad days are like a cycle and they are a part of our lives. If it is a bad day today, there is a glorious Sun ready to shine tomorrow morning. Defeats are temporary. Success and failure are merely the perceptions of a mind. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteNeeta,
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Thank You.