Hemingway: The Old Man And The Sea

Ernest Hemingway is one of the most famous american writers. He was born in 1898 and died in 1961 when he committed suicide. He fighted in World War I and he was wounded in it. He travelled a lot, he visited Spain, Africa, Asia and finally he lived in Cuba until his death.

His most known works are for example: „A Farrewell To Arms“, „For Whom The Bell Tolls“ and „The Old Man And The Sea“ . For this book Hemigway got the Nobel prize in 1954.

The book talks about one old fisherman, whose name is Santiago and who isn ´t very lucky. He hasn´t caught any fish for the last eighty days. He used to go to the sea with a young boy named Manolin but parents of that boy forced the boy to go fishing with another ship because of Santiago´s bad luck. That´s why now the old man goes fishing alone. The boy cares for the old man, he brings him food and is his big friend. The old man narrates him about his childhood, about times when he was young and about various famous people.

Then, one day, it´ s the 85th day of his failure the old man goes fishing again. He goes very far with his boat and he hopes to catch a big fish. After few days long fight with one really huge fish, he gets it. Because he is not able to put the fish into the boat, because it´s too big, he ties it to one side of the boat and tries to sail back to the harbour. But it isn´t easy at all. The sea is full of sharks that attack his boat. He kills one with the harpune, second with knife and with the other he fights with the paddles. He survives but the sharks eat the fish which he has caught. The man gets back to the harbour wounded and exhausted. And he´s got about six metres long skeleton of fish tied to one side of his boat. The next day the other fishermen welcome him and the boy is very sad because of Santiago´s defeat. But Santiago doesn´t surrender, he plans new fishing.

The book is about the fight between man and nature. It shows how cruel can nature be. But the interesting thing is that Santiago still loves nature and sea although he has troubles with it.