Old Man and the Sea #3

At first The Old Man and the Sea did not energize me to keep on reading it.  When I realized the universal themes of the book, I actually did start to like more.  Throughout this novel it has many different universal themes that help make the book seem like it has a purpose.  After reading and analyzing The Old Man and the Sea I truly saw the different aspects of human nature and themes throughout Hemingway’s novel. The themes I noticed were perseverance and pride.

Perseverance is the first thing that came to mind when finished the novel.   This is because the old man’s battle with the fish is not only a battle of strength, but a battle of wills. The old man makes up for his old age with incredible endurance, willing to withstand hunger, physical pain, and isolation from the rest of the world as he battles the fish. The quote ‘I’ll stay with you until I am dead,’ shows that the old man had perseverance. (Hemingway,78). This shows he has a lot of perseverance because he is never willing to give up, because if he would give up he would be giving up his passion. I think this is a great theme Hemingway thought of, and I think it is the main universal theme of the novel.  

In the beginning of The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago had almost too much pride, and he tended to blame himself.  This wasn’t good for his physical and emotional needs.  When he went out to sea, he perhaps went too far, he then caught the fish and it was then eaten by sharks.  The old man’s pride was “long gone,” in my opinion, because at one point he asked himself if pride was the problem, and was extremely humiliated he wasn’t coming back with a big marlin. He blamed himself, because the Old Man said “'I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish,' he said. 'Neither for you nor for me.'” (Hemingway 110) His pride does soon return to him though when he explains what happened out at sea, to the boy.

The themes perseverance and pride were just one of the very many themes in the novel The Old Man and the Sea.  I believe Hemingway made it this way to teach the reader a lesson about pride and not giving up on yourself.  These universal themes show us the realities of being a human, and how human really nature works.  


Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.