What attracts you to a Santiago fisherman? “The Old Man and the Sea”: the philosophical meaning of the story, the strength of the old man’s character

Composition

SANTIAGO (English: Santiago) is the hero of E. Hemingway’s story “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952). The real prototypes are considered to be Fernando Manuel Peredos (nicknamed Gallego), Anselmo Hernando, Gregorio Fuentes, captain of Hemingway's boat. Hemingway himself wrote that he reflected “the character traits of an old fisherman he knew from Casablanca.” We can say that S.- collective image fisherman from the northern coast of Cuba, in the Cojimar area. At the same time, this is a symbolic image in which romantic and folklore motives. S. absorbed best qualities 363 human soul - kindness, perseverance, courage. His simple, 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 rare endurance and determination. The impulse of his actions is the natural human right to food, the pride of a “natural fisherman”. In the image of S., the features of the Hemin-Guey 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 “presumptuous” individualism, which brings only destruction (M. Schorer, K. Burhans). Meanwhile, S. embodies the type of person who does not strive only to take from nature, but who has accepted 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 fight against her and the sharks that rob S. of his prey is an endless dispute between man and nature. S. does not fish, but, as it were, performs a sacred ritual, performing the prescribed ritual. In this he is similar to the hero of “Moby Dick” by G. Melville. Similar motives 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., big fish, the sharks that were supposed to eat this fish, and God loves them all. (K. Baker considered Hemingway's story as biblical parable, correlating S.’s image with the personality of Jesus Christ.) In S.’s image, the teaching motive is important: the boy, S.’s assistant, is confident 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 presentation Nobel Prize, which the writer was awarded in 1954 for this work).

Lit.: Baker S. 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 works on this work

“The Old Man and the Sea” image of the main character Santiago and its characteristics are given in this article.

“The Old Man and the Sea” characteristic of Santiago

At the center of Hemingway's story is the figure of an old, lonely fisherman Santiago with "the cheerful eyes of a man who does not give up." He has long lived only with memories of his youth and dreams of the shores of Africa he once saw... Santiago befriends the neighbor boy Manolino, feeling in him the same romantic soul and passion for the sea.

Character traits and portrait of Santiago

• honest worker
• physically strong
• hardy
• ascetic
• strong-willed
• experienced fisherman
• philosopher
• optimist
• humanist
• romantic
• loves and understands nature
• loves the boy like a son

Santiago image

The old man lives according to his own work code of ethics, heroically fighting for life and human dignity. For almost three months every day he goes to sea and returns without a catch. On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago catches a huge marlin. By the way, it is very difficult to catch a fish such as marlin, since it reaches speeds of up to 140 km/h and its weight reaches 1200 pounds (about 600 kg). She can easily lead a boat and even sink it.

The fish are eaten by sharks. The old one seems to be failing. Sadness, loneliness, old age. Weakness and decline are emphasized even in the description of the appearance of fishing.

But let us remember how Santiago fought with the fish. At the decisive moment, when after a three-day race the marlin was tired and emerged from the sea, the old man felt his head “dizzy.” However, he stopped himself: “You need to have a clear head. So, gather your thoughts together and learn to endure like a man. Or like this fish." The fisherman tried to mobilize all his strength as much as possible in order to win and prove to those who considered him a loser, to himself, a sea creature, that he was still worth something! “It’s pointless to lose hope,” he thought. “It’s pointless and probably a sin.”

The old man's fight against the sharks expresses optimism. Hemingway tirelessly emphasizes the theme of human invincibility again and again. In essence, the story teaches that as long as a person is alive, as long as he feels like a human, there is hope for the best. The old man is left without a weapon, his fatigue exceeds the limits of what is possible. He knows that the sharks will attack again at night. What can he do? Fight until he dies. A little later he dreams that he won’t have to fight anymore, but again and again he fights. When defeat seems certain, when there is nothing left of the fish, victory looms in the defeat itself. The old man again, as at the beginning of the story, carries home - even without the boy's help - a mast with a furled sail. He falls asleep and dreams of the lions of his youth, and the boy protects his sleep, expecting new ones, happy days transfer of wisdom from an old man to a representative of the younger generation.

“If you want,” says D. Zatonsky, “the image of old Santiago from Hemingway’s parable story “The Old Man and the Sea” is elevated to the level of a myth, a myth about a man, defeated and at the same time invincible.”

Folding diagrams-characteristics of the image of Santiago

The teacher's word

At the center of the story is the figure of an old Santiago fisherman. This is not a very old man. So let’s talk about ourselves, and then we can turn to the justice of self-characterization.

The old man lives in accordance with the powerful labor ethical code and heroically fights for human life. For almost three months now we have been going out to the sea and turning around without a catch. On the eighty-fifth day of Santiago, catch the magnificent marlin. Before speaking, it is very important to catch a fish such as marlin, since the fish develops a speed of up to 140 km/year, and its weight reaches 1200 pounds (about 600 kg). You can easily lead the chaven and sink him.

Sharks eat fish. It seems that the old man recognizes defeats. Money, self-worth, old age. Weakness and extinguishment are emphasized in the description of the nature of fishing.

Ale zgadaymo, as Santiago fought for the fish. At the critical moment, when, after three days of ferries, the marlin got tired and disappeared from the sea, the old man felt how his head was “confused.” Prote said to himself: “I need my head to be clear. Father, buy more of your thoughts and begin to endure like a man. Abo yak otsya riba.” Fishing, trying to mobilize all my strength as much as possible, so that I can bring to those who, having caught him without breath, to himself,

sea ​​reality, what else is it good for you! “It’s a waste of hope,” he thought. “It’s probably a sin.”

There is optimism in the old man's fight against sharks. Hemingway tirelessly reinforces the theme of human inability anew. In essence, the story is to teach that as long as a person is alive, as long as she feels human, there is hope for the best. The old one is deprived of his health,

His weariness crosses the boundaries of the mighty. Vіn knows that at night the sharks will attack again. What can you do? Fight until you die. A little later he dies so that he does not have to fight anymore, but he enters into the fight again and again. If the defeat seems insane, if nothing is lost from the fish, then the defeat itself will have a victory. The old man again, as soon as he told the cob, carried home - without the help of the boy - the goldfish with a burnt glass. He falls asleep and dreams of his youth, and the boy protects his sleep, looking forward to new, happy days of passing on wisdom from the old you, representatives of the younger generation.

“Whatever you want,” asserts D. Zatonsky, “the image of old Santiago from Hemingway’s story-parable “The Old Man and the Sea” brings to the level a myth, a myth about a people who can and cannot overcome.”

School TV for the story by Ernest Hemingway"The Old Man and the Sea." The author of the work “The Old Man and the Sea” is the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway. He is one of the most popular and beloved writers of the 20th century. Prose writer and journalist, correspondent on five wars, a legendary person. Hemingway's literary vision was known only to those who had never read his works. For his work “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953. This book has little light resonance. The story-parable about old Santiago was transformed into a masterpiece under the master’s pen, and the wonderful pictures of the sea and the “technology” of fishing were combined with a deep philosophical overtone about the goodness of human life.

The main character is old Santiago. He was “thin, tortured, his face was cut with deep wrinkles, and his cheeks were covered with brown spots.” Tse vin learned the boy Monolino fishing. And the boy really loved the old one. Old Santiago, selfless and poor, lives in the hut, made from the precious trefoils of the royal palm. In the hut there is no steel, stilt, and in the earthen bed there is a hole in which to make fire for cooking the vegetable. When the tired old man goes to bed, I dream of the Africa of my youth, “its golden shores, its high white mountains, I will no longer dream of beauties, women, or banners. Already often in my dreams, distant lands and mountains appear, approaching the shore.” All the life of the old is connected with the sea, and he cannot imagine himself without it. We can’t do anything else. To live by the sea means that you need to work on the sea. The life of old Santiago is even more important. In order to keep yourself warm, you need to give yourself a good workout. It happened that the old man returned from the sea with nothing. Until the next day, I’ll go out to the sea again. So, day after day, the fates of old Santiago are merged, his life is ending. In the middle of the sea, I often remember a little guy who helps me wash the wind and prepare the drink. Old Santiago had to endure a lot of hardships. May you open your good heart to everyone with love and tenderness. If you love the sea, you will think about someone with such affection and tenderness, the silent woman who “gives great caresses.” To love the birds and the fish, he knows, he has his own special concern for them.

Poor old Santiago fishes every day, and at night. This robot helps me live. He didn’t have much luck at sea. It's not just empty fishing nets, but the fight against sharks. Thoughts about fish don’t deprive him even for a second. Steadily in his thoughts, he is talking to the fish. “I will never be separated from you until I die,” says old Santiago. Vin calls himself “unprecedentedly old.” I will confirm this again. Of course, during fights with sharks, you can’t stop thinking about the boy Manolino. He always wanted the boy to take charge of him. And after these long days spent by the sea, in a terrible fight against sharks, the old man turns back home. How much strength, how much health, how many painful wounds this struggle left behind! Old Santiago was sleeping, covering himself with newspapers. Already the young man was in charge of old Santiago. Manolino stood there, hearing the old man die. When he rubbed his wounded hands, he began to cry. The boy always tried to do the same for the old man. We understand that the old is important and self-sufficient. Manolino tastes great with great flavor and warmth. In the roses they shared their enemies about the sea, about fishing, about all the benefits that were used for them. Manolino wants to learn good fishing from the old guy. For the new Santiago, he was the butt of masculinity, humility, the master of his actions.

On the butt against the old one And the boy already clearly understands that good has more power than evil. Good people there is more in the world. That’s why in our hour there are a lot of people who are always ready to come to the aid of old people, German self-sufficient pensioners. As long as goodness continues, people will live easier and better lives, this is an important time.

Santiago, the old one, is the main character of the story written by Hemingway towards the end of his life and became the most important ideological and artistic source of his creativity, a kind of spiritual commandment of the master. The action flares up in the fishing village near Havana in Cuba, in the city where in 1939-1960 the writer is still alive, and is indicated by the documentary accuracy of geographical and everyday features. Even if it sounds hopeless, the story is at the same time clearly symbolic, flowing along with the plot without any themes or motives, which have long been praised by the author.

Rybak S., like the characters in other works of Hemingway, is a man of inveterate physical activity, physically living in a painful struggle against the elements. Unable and self-sufficient in the old age of the rocks and in every way continues to murmur about studying in the distant youth of the shores of Africa, where on the sticky sand the little ones of the same river play without a turbo, you know the joy, without getting stuck with Homeboy Manolo, for now, go to sea for the time being. They are distinguished by those who, in their souls, are both full-fledged romantics, selflessly plunged into the sea and its miracles, and bow down before the greatness of human feats; Their hidden idol is the famous baseball player Di Maggio. Reconciled with the hard truth of the inevitability of life’s experiences, which are famous in the village of “unlucky” (forty days in a row, going to sea, but invariably turning around without a catch), S. thus at least does not lose his courage : We rejoice that our main battle is still ahead. This reconstitution of S. was reminiscent of the steadfast nature of Hemingway himself, a tireless fisherman, thinker and athlete, and at the same time an extremely capable writer, who for decades had been developing the idea of ​​the “great American novel”.

The meaning of symbolic images in the work “The Old Man and the Sea”

In its style and figurative style, the story “The Old Man and the Sea” is close to the literary genre of parables, which are based on allegories and convey moral science to the story. Many critics took it as a parable and tried to discredit the whole story of the old one as a symbolic depiction of the struggle between good and evil, the struggle of man against fate. Hemingway himself protested against such a one-sided and simplistic interpretation of his work, providing a realistic basis for the story. Vin said: “No great book will ever be written in such a way that the symbols in it are thought out in advance and then inserted into it. Such symbols climb to the top, like rodzinki in bread with rodzinki. Bread with rodzinki garniy, ale simple bread krashy.” In “The Old One and the Sea” I tried to create a real old thing, a real sea, real fish and real sharks. If I have tried to do them well and to do them truthfully, they can mean a lot.”

Let’s try to understand the underlying essence of the images in the work by looking into the vocabulary of symbols.
Old - is widely seen in various cultures as a sign of righteousness and Divine blessing. Old people can convey the greatest truths, and in this way (as well as in other characteristics) can be similar to children.

The sail is associated with the symbolism of the wind. It is an attribute of Fortune, which emphasizes its abundance.
Sea - ancient Greeks drank their mother's cob into the sea. At the same time, there is an image of the elements, which brings elemental hardship and death. Sailing on the sea is often seen as a place between life and death.
Brush - in the Bible there is an episode where scatterings across the field of the brush vibrate in the flesh at the commands of the Lord. The brush, in this way, becomes a symbol of life and faith in the coming resurrection.
The meaning of these symbols, most importantly, confirms the philosophical context of the story-parable “The Old Man and the Sea”. And it goes up to the point that in the image of fishing, the writer infused the insurmountable spirit of a person who stands up to the external environment that is stronger for her. The Old One is the infusion of great spiritual wisdom, the truth of life, which manifests itself in love to the utmost.

The ending of the story is also symbolic. The old one is going to sleep, and I’m going to take off the levy. And why the hell, drinking away his sleep, the lad sits. Youth is next to him both in the form of a boy and in the form of a lion, which often comes from the dream of an old man from his youthful fates and is tempting to tell the fortune of youth, mandri to Africa. In these dreams, the old becomes young again.

Here is a little one on which we tried to depict the atmosphere of Ernest Hemingway’s story-parable “The Old Man and the Sea.” As you can see, this illustration is depicted in the yellowish-blue tones of the sun, which sits behind the image. In the foreground of the images is an old fisherman and a boy, offended by the stench in the distance. Since the story is of a philosophical nature and the images that appear in it carry a symbolic meaning of meaning, we depicted rocks, which signify the membranes of life. The sea, as it beats against the feet of the old and caresses the sky, at the same time represents a natural element, which at any given moment is ready to weaken and find a little human essence. The colors of the paintings also play an important role, they are aimed at conveying the mood of the old man and the boy. Chervony - reinforces the desire to live, overcome, not give up, Zhovty - hope for the coming day.

In general, the little ones carried an optimistic charge, which was intended to reinforce the ideological and thematic meaning of Ernest Hemingway’s story “The Old Man and the Sea.”

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1.2. Nature in Hemingway's early stories
Nature occupies a special place in Hemingway's work.
First of all, the natural world in his stories is contrasted with the world of cruelty and violence, associated with the world of childhood. Northern Michigan, with its pristine forests and lakes, is where Hemingway's beloved hero, Nick Adams, is formed.
As Yu.Ya writes. Lidsky, “Nature in Hemingway’s work is a whole philosophy. As soon as it appears on the pages of a story or novel, you can be sure that the author “entrusted” it with not one, but several ideological and aesthetic functions. The problem of “man and nature” has always been for Hemingway is extremely important, and this theme is developed in literally every major work of his. But if we turn to the stories being analyzed, we will see that in them landscape and nature generally play not one of the central, but a subordinate role. Of course, this is also connected with not a “real” topic, with all of Hemingway’s “threshold” state before the first big own work. But one truly Hemingway characteristic feature Regarding nature, it is not difficult to note in the first stories, especially in “Here in Michigan.” We are talking about an unusually acute feeling of nature, and a joyful feeling, although it is given mainly indirectly.
In the story, Hemingway does not admire nature, does not act as a calm contemplator, does not look for traditional correspondences between the landscape and the state of the human spirit, but literally “invades” nature. The conversation of the hunters upon returning home, the story with alcohol, the details of their appearance and behavior - all this expresses a feeling of pure and joyful strength, perhaps even happiness, that arose during a long stay “in nature.” Because of this, the whole story takes on, even somehow unexpectedly, a poetic character. But that's all. And the mature Hemingway is not limited to just the “physical” feeling of nature, no matter how strong and poetic it may be.".
In 1924 (probably in mid-March), William Bird published a collection of Hemingway's prose miniatures, In Our Time, in Paris with a circulation of 170 copies. The collection included eighteen miniatures, reminiscent of original prose poems; There were no capital letters in its title, the names of the author and publisher, and the indication of the place of publication. In a letter to Edmund Wilson dated October 18, 1924, Hemingway asserts his innocence). On October 5, 1925, Boney and Liveright published a collection in New York with a circulation of 1,335 copies under the same title, but with capital letters where they were supposed to be. However, this time the miniatures of the previous edition were used as chapters interspersing Hemingway’s “full-length” stories, two of which (“Out of Season”, “My Old Man”) were included in the book “Three Stories and Ten Poems”, six have already been published in various magazines, and four (“Something is Over,” “Three-Day Bad Weather,” “Champion,” “Cat in the Rain”) appeared for the first time. This edition contains an epigraph that was later removed, in which stupid American youths ask the author two questions about French beauties. In addition, the tenth miniature of Bird's edition became "A Very Short Story", and the 11th, which also became a short story, was called "The Revolutionary". The collection took its final form in the 1930 edition with a foreword by the author “In the port of Smyrna.” V.A. Kukharenko, analyzing the language and style of Hemingway’s first stories according to Bird’s edition and noting their extremely strong emotional impact with extreme sparse presentation, showed that Hemingway achieves this using a whole system of means, “the main elements of which are an extremely clear organization of the structure of utterances and extreme efficiency in encoding the message”. And M. Mendelssohn notes that it lies on most short stories "a bloody reflection of the events of 1914-1918 and those military battles that directly followed the First World War".
V. Dneprov, R. Orlova, I. Kashkin and others rightly state that the collection as a whole is, as it were, “illuminated” by the flames of war. Edmurd Wilson wrote about the same thing: "Hemingway's intention seems to have been... that the war would provide the key to the whole.".
In the collection “In Our Time,” Hemingway acted as a mature master with both his own theme and established style. This theme was precisely the world war and its reflection in consciousness, psychology, worldview, the very life of a person in his relationship with the world, which has acquired the features of tragedy. This world of war is opposed in his stories by the world of nature, the world pure beauty, which lies at the heart of Hemingway’s aesthetics and allowed the writer, according to Yu. Olesha, to express in his own style the ideology of humanism, the consciousness of the beauty of life, and an amazingly persistent love of life.
On the pages of the first collection one can hear this constant and completely unambiguous joy of the physical, sensory perception of many things, but most importantly of nature, which acts as a healer of mental wounds, eternal source joy.
Tracing the evolution of the image of nature in Hemingway’s works, B. Gribanov notes that “the image of nature, a saving and eternal power, runs essentially through all the stories about Nick Adams. In the novel “Fiesta,” this image grows to the scale of a symbol, and nature remains, as Hemingway wrote in one letter, “eternal, like a hero,” turning into an equal hero of the novel and contrasting with human vanity.
Not just nature, but the theme of the unity of man with nature, the idea of ​​the eternity of nature and the fragility of human life will run through all of Hemingway’s work. This theme sounds especially visible in “Indian Village”, where the nature surrounding the boy - the lake, the sun rising over the hills, the fish splashing in the water - is filled with a feeling of peace and faith in immortality.
The epigraph from Ecclesiastes, which Hemingway added to the novel “Fiesta”: “A generation passes, and a generation comes, but the earth endures forever,” can be applied to Hemingway’s entire work as the defining dominant of his relationship with the world.
Analyzing the functional role of nature in this collection, Yu.Ya. Lidsky writes: “In the first five stories (the pre-war cycle with Nick), nature appears in several functions characteristic of Hemingway’s work. Then follow the actual war stories and stories about the time immediately after the war. There are four of them, and, as one might assume a priori, there is no nature in them or almost none. The novella "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" is the only one of these four where we're talking about not about the immediate post-war reality. But the special character of his heroes fully explains the almost complete absence of nature in it. Finally, in the next five stories (we are not talking about “My Old Man”) nature again occupies an important place, but its functions, in comparison with the beginning of the collection, are significantly rethought. Even this very thing general idea leads one to assume that Hemingway devotes all his attention to nature special role" .
In the story "Indian Village" Hemingway uses the technique of framing. The beginning and end of the story are framed by a river, as if rounding out the hero’s search, closing the natural circle. And inside this circle lies a swamp - also water, but of a completely different quality. If a river is flowing water, then a swamp is standing water. The significance of the swamp in the story is great and goes back to the ideological position of the author, for whom (and, consequently, for his heroes) the 20s were not a time of final decisions or clearly defined positions. The world seemed wavering and unsteady, with unreliable points of support, painted in tragic colors. Only personal courage, the strength of one’s own character, had absolute significance in this world. "From here,- notes Yu.Ya. Lidsky, - the easily felt but difficult to analyze quality of many of Hemingway’s works, which seem to flicker, refuse to remain still, offer multiple solutions.".
The morpheme “swamp” also has the same “shimmering” meaning in the story “On the Big River.” Of course, the swamp in in this case not just a natural phenomenon, just like a river is not just a river. Hemingway persistently emphasizes Nick's reluctance to fish in the swamp: “Nick didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to wade through deep water that reached his very armpits, and catch trout in places where it was impossible to pull them ashore. No grass grew along the banks of the swamp, and large cedars closed overhead, allowing only rare spots of sunlight; in the semi-darkness, in a fast current, it was unsafe to fish. Fishing in a swamp is a dangerous business. Nick didn’t want that. Today he didn’t want to go even lower downstream.".
As you can see, the swamp here is associated with darkness, it is a complete absence - the absence of light, grass along the banks, reliability of fishing, space ( "ahead the river narrowed and went into a swamp"), volume ( “You can’t walk through such a swamp. The branches grow too low. You’d have to crawl on the ground to get between them. “That’s why the animals that live in the swamp have such a body structure,” thought Nick.”), as a result, a lack of desire to go there. This passage differs from other parts of the story in the manner of presentation - Hemingway here moves away from the technique of “showing” instead of describing and explains in detail the state of the hero, and the author’s voice, joining the thoughts of the hero, gives the text a special significance.
"To unambiguously determine the conclusion of the story,- concludes Yu.Ya. Lidsky, - it would be necessary to choose either a river or a swamp as the starting point of logical reasoning, but then the result of the analysis would turn out to be one-sided, that is, erroneous. The difficulty lies in the fact that neither the story nor the collection gives an unambiguous conclusion, a single solution. Whatever we base it on, the alternative still needs to be taken into account. However, if we proceed not only from the concepts of river and swamp, but from the whole artistic text, it will become clear that the leading theme is the theme of the river, although the theme of the swamp should not be neglected".
The story "On the Big River", which, it would seem, is entirely devoted to nature, to the description of various landscapes and the “simple” actions of the hero associated with them (catching trout, lighting a fire, cooking, catching grasshoppers) - with each action taking place on a new background, which to some extent resembles a ritual, is in fact deeply metaphorical and symbolic. The joy from the presence of nature, present in earlier stories, is replaced by hidden sadness, a clear recording of its changes and differences. Its description is inseparable from reminders of the war, with which every feature under consideration must be correlated.
Every step of the hero, every gesture, every little thing that comes into his field of vision actually has a serious meaning, being an example of the most intense synthesis. A simple detailed enumeration of the hero’s actions, in addition to giving the narrative that sense of sensory authenticity that provides almost an “effect of presence,” precisely by the excessiveness of his fixations suggests the idea that by doing this Nick is simply forcing himself not to think about the unwanted. That he deliberately fixes his consciousness on an infinite number of details, not allowing himself even for a minute to loosen control over his own consciousness and even once to touch the forbidden. “And such control is only possible thanks to those lovely, familiar, long-known details, colors, smells, sensations, tastes, the play of light and shadow, finally, with which nature is so generous.”
Nature also plays an active role, that is, it not only provides the opportunity to keep consciousness within certain limits, but also directly has a beneficial effect on the “lost” hero, who gradually, over the course of two parts of the story, comes to life and even becomes capable of a humorous perception of reality.
The intonation of deep peace and some promise that ends the story leaves hope for the future (it’s not for nothing that the last sentence is written in the future tense): "Nick stood up to his full height on a snag, holding the rod in his hands; the net hung heavily from his belt; then he went into the river and, splashing through the water, wandered to the shore... He looked back. The river was barely visible between the trees. There was more ahead there will be many days when he will be able to catch trout in the swamp".
Analysis of the story by Yu.Ya. Lidsky ends with the remark: “That same river, which, fortunately for Nick, was in place, now, in the penultimate sentence of the story, is once again shown to the tired hero in order to calm him down and awaken him, no, not confidence, but almost confidence (here the author very significantly resorts to improperly direct speech) in the coming new days, in the fact that the work already begun by nature will be continued. Thus, the “worldview” quality of nature, reflected in the general form of its presence in the collection, found particularly clear expression in his final story, and also the most poetic".
If we ignore Nick and consider nature as such, we can see that in this story (as in others), Hemingway needs nature in order to give the scene visible, sensory persuasiveness, replacing the story with a “show” and focusing on certain associations of the reader. Sparing and few details are addressed to the entire complex of sensations available to us. Hemingway is not satisfied with the standard description of the morning ( "the sun was rising over the hills"), and complements the picture with tangible details ( "The perch splashed and circles began to flow through the water"), and at the end, to give the picture even greater density, he reports that "Nick put his hand in the water. In the bitter cold of the morning, the water seemed warm.".
Yu.Ya. Lidsky comments on this property: “Hemingway, in his desire to show and make one feel, is especially careful when it comes to the geography of action, landscape, weather, climate. This is how Hemingway defines the first function of nature.”.
The second, no less important function of nature is associated with the optimistic nature of the simplest actions mentioned by Yu. Olesha, which Hemingway talks about, every now and then departing from the continuity of the development of the plot. The same can be said about the writer’s landscape. In Hemingway, nature itself, apart from people, is beautiful and deeply poetic. And it is she who, despite all the horrors and suffering experienced, allows us to hope for the best, even for immortality.
In the story “Indian Camp,” the description of nature, given in sparse but very impressionable strokes, seems to frame the story and at the same time the coming and going of the characters. At the beginning “from the shore they walked through a meadow along grass soaked through with dew... Then they entered the forest and followed a path to a road that went into the distance towards the hills. It was much brighter on the road, since trees had been cut down on both sides.”(translated by O. Kholmskaya). And at the end, after the death of the Indian, during a difficult Caesarean section performed on his wife, who cut his throat with a knife, the description follows in contrast: "The sun was rising over the hills. The perch splashed, and circles began to flow through the water. Nick put his hand in the water. In the sharp cold of the morning, the water seemed warm. At this early hour on the lake, in the boat, next to his father, who was sitting on the oars, Nick was absolutely sure that he would never die.".
Nature not only allows you to endure what you see, softening the horror with its tranquility, it - next to death - inspires thoughts of immortality. It is not for nothing that at the end of the story it is associated with light, the sunrise.
A characteristic sign is that the hero’s attitude towards nature before and after the war is different, determining the presence or absence of a positive perspective in the hero’s worldview. In the “pre-war” stories, nature and the hero are not yet dismembered, the connections between them are strong, thereby symbolizing the beginning of life’s journey to understanding the world, when “I” and nature seem to be one whole. Nature in these stories constitutes not only the background, but also a significant part of the action itself. The purely physical feeling of immortality that comes to Nick in the boat is largely due to the perception of nature.
Nature plays a similar role in other “pre-war” stories about Nick. Yu.Ya. Lidsky mentions that “the poetic nature of what happened in the story “Something Is Over,” although from a moral point of view it looks very unattractive, is ensured precisely by the landscape, which continuously participates in the narrative. Even the strongest shock experienced by Nick (“Champion” - “The Battler”) is softened and is smoothed out by the sensually perceptible background of the action, that is, by the same nature".
The feeling of nature seems to be diffused throughout the entire fabric of the stories. We feel her presence, even when she is mentioned in passing, in one or two phrases. For example: “Both boats set sail in the dark. Nick heard the creaking of the rowlocks of the other boat far ahead, in the fog. The Indians rowed in short, sharp jerks.”
Nature, as Yu.Ya. writes. Lidsky, “finds such a “thick” embodiment already in the fabric of the stories of this first large collection that it becomes an independent value, one of those spheres where the power of humanistic affirmation takes on an almost absolute character, poorly compatible with irony as an ideological trait.
Nature brings joy, health - mental and physical - gives beneficial fatigue. Even in the war and post-war world, it never ceases to be beautiful and, as it were, promises a person hope. Naturally, this side is more reflected in the pre-war cycle, but, sharpening the irony of the contrasting chapters about the war, it is at the same time affirmed with enormous power. One can perhaps say that it is not so much nature that contrasts, but the general perception of reality by “pre-war” people. Nature is always poetic and life-affirming.".
The motif of joy accompanies every description of nature, which plays in this regard as a ray of an encouraging source of life, regardless of the aspect in which it is presented: either calm or in a moment of storm.
"Dad, I know where the black squirrels are"- says Nick, “covering up” his father’s troubles (“The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife”). Exuberant joy sounds in the story “Three-day Bad Weather”, where nature is one of the main ones and not for a minute disappearing "heroes". The very concept of bad weather is rethought by the author, and against the background of a raging autumn storm it turns out that baseball cannot even be compared with fishing, that this game was not worth talking about at all.
In his stories, Hemingway presents nature from an absolutely humanistic perspective. “These functions of nature - to give visible, sensory authenticity to the story, as well as to introduce (or strengthen) a humanistic, optimistic sound into it,” writes Yu.Ya. Lidsky, “can be traced in literally all the stories in the collection in which it appears. So, all the narration in the story "Something's Over" is interspersed with a landscape sketch; Nick washes his hands and his broken knee in a puddle, goes out into a clearing lit by a fire ("Champion"), etc. But something new about nature immediately appears, as soon as we refuse from a completely conditional “separation” of nature from man.”
Nature looks completely different in “post-war” stories. Nature is virtually absent in "Very short story"("A Very Short Story"), remaining somewhere in the distance, where the gaze of the wounded hero, who was taken out to the roof of the hospital to breathe, does not reach. There is no nature in the story "At Home". Krebs' detached state does not allow him to notice nature, deprives him unity with it. The absence of nature seems to further emphasize his rejection, removal from life, falling out of the normal flow of existence. The point is not only that nature has nowhere to come from naturalistically, where the hero almost does not dare to leave the porch, but also in a deeper symbolism: nature is the soul, its material expression. In this regard, the absence of nature is consistent with the death of the hero’s soul, its “pupation.”
Between these two cycles - before and after the war - characterized by the different role of nature, there are several intermediate stories from which nature disappears completely. Researchers have not provided a complete explanation for this “disappearance.”
According to Yu.Ya. Lidsky, “in “The Revolutionary” nature is absent, one might say, pointedly. There is Italy and Switzerland in the story, but nature is not even mentioned. Finally, in “Mr. and Mrs. Elliot” there is actually no nature either. It is only spoken about, however, interesting phrase: “Turaine turned out to be a flat, hot plain, very reminiscent of Kansas” (I, 84). Only the character of the characters in the story makes it possible to understand why Hemingway, limiting himself to a single sentence, deviates from his usual aesthetic principles landscape sketch. The writer simply tells what Touraine is like. The striking difference between this message, which has the most general character(similar to Kansas), from a purely concrete sensation, for example, the apparent warmth of water in the sharp morning cold".
Nature reappears in the “post-war” cycle, never to disappear again until the end of the collection. However, in a different context and in a different function.
In the story "Cat in the Rain", as well as in the story "The Three-Day Blow", bad weather and rain are also described, but this is a completely different picture. Here, for the first time in Hemingway, the hero and nature are, as it were, dissected, thought and perceived separately from each other. For Nick, who imagines nature as an extension of himself, it didn’t matter whether the weather was good or bad, since he did not separate himself from nature, subconsciously becoming infected with its poetry and seeing the same joy in any of its states: whether on a hot day (“The Doctor and His Wife "), or in cold, damp and windy day beginning of autumn (“Three-day bad weather”).
In the story “Cat in the Rain,” a young American woman is indifferent to nature. She does not experience any feelings at the sight of shiny wet bronze or a long strip sea ​​surf.
"For the heroine of the story,- states Yu.Ya. Lidsky, - as if poetry, which is an internal essential feature of nature, does not exist; moreover, nature is hostile to it. This alone is enough, if we talk about the context of Hemingway’s entire work, to conclude about a radical and negative shift. Approximately the same shades appear quite naturally in the story “Out of Season,” where one can find a rather indicative decrease, unthinkable, of course, in the “pre-war” cycle: “The water was dirty and muddy. To the right on the shore lay a pile of garbage” (1, 95). We find the same dismemberment in the stories “Cross-Country Snow” and “On the Big River.” In “Cross in the Snow,” nature is in everything, from the beginning to the end of the story, excellent, still poetic and beautiful, but it is no longer an integral part of the hero’s life, but only a light in the gloomy everyday life. In addition, Nick's perception of nature, which was previously essentially unconscious, is now fully conscious and leads to some sad comparisons. Real life values suddenly narrow down, reduced to the physical pleasure of skiing, but even this smallness cannot always be unconditionally counted on in the post-war world".
Nature acquires a new, special function in the short story “On the Big River” (“Big Two-Hearted River”) - the function of restoration, return to origins, treatment. In the last stories of the collection, Nick, unlike Krebs, is no longer satisfied with “sitting on the porch.” Trying to give rest to his own wounded consciousness, he leaves people “into nature,” choosing familiar places where his mind can find the necessary support.
"In this return to the "origins"- we read from Yu.Ya. Lidsky, - the desire for that beautiful pre-war past, which the enraged world had completely torn away from the painful present, is reflected in. Hemingway, of course, does not idealize the pre-war world, but only emphasizes the strength of the shock caused by the war. Nature in these stories appears not only in a “geographical” capacity, its display not only gives the story tangible authenticity, it is not only once again covered in poetry, but acts as the only healer so far, a healer of wounds inflicted by society, and in this new quality provides the hero has a glimmer of hope, “half-openness”... Here too Hemingway remains true to his synthesis, containing a whole vast picture in one sentence mental state hero. At the same time, hope begins to sound, without which the story would lose its meaning.".
"The train disappeared around a bend, behind a hill covered with charred forest. Nick sat down on his canvas bag with supplies and bedding, which had been thrown out of the baggage car. There was no city, there was nothing but rails and burnt earth. From thirteen saloons on the only There was no trace left of Senei Street. The bare foundation of the Grand Hotel stuck out of the ground. The stone had cracked and crumbled from the fire. That was all that remained of the city of Senei. Even the top layer of earth had turned to ash.
Nick looked around the charred slope where houses had once been scattered, then walked along the tracks to the bridge over the river. The river was there. It seethed around the wooden piles.". From the striking words “the river was in place” begins the description of a real landscape, with a river, trout in the depths, a kingfisher flying over it, etc. The river is like a boundary line separating the world of war from the natural world. And if we remember figurative meaning rivers as living current life (“river of people”, “river of life”), then it will become clear symbolic meaning this phrase. “The river was in place” in this context means that life went on. This conclusion follows from the subsequent text. Returning to the past, Nick is initially horrified by how much everything has changed, as if the war had swept through these places. In place of the familiar town, Nick finds nothing. “It wasn’t... it wasn’t... it didn’t remain” is all that sounds in his mind.
Fearing that there is nothing left there, that there is nothing to return to, Nick rushes to the river. “The river was in place,” and on the next page we learn that “the old feeling came to life in him,” and a few lines later, that he is happy. This striking change in the hero’s mood is caused by one-on-one communication with nature.

People and nature in E. Hemingway’s story “The Old Man and the Sea”

The hero of the story “The Old Man and the Sea” does not look for a problem in nature, but must follow it. The old man not only lives his life in harmony with nature, with the sea - in part of this world of nature. Santiago loved flying fish - these were his greatest friends in the ocean, and from birds stings, especially small and tenacious sea damsels. The old man thought about the sea, like about a woman, about a living essence that can give great affection and save it. I felt sorry for the giant sea turtles, whose hearts beat for many more years because they are forgotten. He regrets and chokes on the great fish that was in his tank, calls it miraculous, unexpected, loves it and respects it. A logical diagram depicts the essence of this problem.

It’s true, people are part of nature. And all the stinks - birds, turtles, fish - are brothers and sisters. What can a human say against them? The only thing I have is the will and the mind. Santiago respects so much that “people are quite worthless compared to other birds and animals.” Why did you say that? Perhaps, through those global understandings of humanity, which would now be able to grasp everything worthy and beautiful in life.

Santiago is alive among people. He is old, but still walks by the sea. Tse on the right is yogo life, yogo call. And you only need fish in order to see, and for Santiago, fighting for fish means fighting for his place in human success, as he knows no matter what, even though there is a rumor about those who are “unhappy” about him. how many eighty times days of going out to the sea and not catching any waterfish. The window of his home was patched with burlap and “thrown onto the ensign of hopeless defeat.” The old man himself thinks about those who will not be blessed with the rest of his time. Ale rozrahovuvat vin is guilty only on himself: “That’s the good mother’s talent. But we can do it better. You won’t be able to feel any happiness.” There is a lot of talk about the old boy Ma-nolin. The old man thinks kindly about the people who mark him on the birch tree: “I hope there’s no one there to worry about me. Vlasna, only the lad will be worried. However, I am not sure that you can trust me. The older fishermen are worried. The same. The people in our village are kind.”

Husbandry From the basic diagram it is clear that Santiago is a part of human matrimony, as it encourages people to constantly struggle for their lives and self-identity.

Hemingway's story-parable destroys the problems that were praised by both the old and the author, and the entire estate: about fidelity to duty, high mastery, everyday calling, etc.

Santiago

SANTIAGO (English: Santiago) is the hero of E. Hemingway’s story “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952). The real prototypes are considered to be Fernando Manuel Peredos (nicknamed Gallego), Anselmo Hernando, Gregorio Fuentes, captain of Hemingway's boat. Hemingway himself wrote that he reflected “the character traits of an old fisherman he knew 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 Cojimar region. At the same time, this is a symbolic image in which romantic and folklore motifs are strong. S. absorbed the best qualities of the human soul - kindness, perseverance, courage. His simple, 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 rare endurance and determination. The impulse of his actions is the natural human right to food, the pride of a “natural fisherman”. In the image of S., the features of the Hemin-Guey 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 “presumptuous” individualism, which brings only destruction (M. Schorer, K. Burhans). Meanwhile, S. embodies the type of person who does not strive only to take from nature, but who has accepted 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 fight against her and the sharks that rob S. of his prey is an endless dispute between man and nature. S. does not fish, but, as it were, performs a sacred ritual, performing the prescribed ritual. In this he is similar to the hero of “Moby Dick” by G. Melville. Similar motives 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 personality of Jesus Christ.) In the image of S., the teaching motive is important: the boy, S.’s assistant, is confident 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 receiving the Nobel Prize, which the writer was awarded in 1954. for this work).

Lit.: Baker S. 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".

All characteristics in alphabetical order:

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

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

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

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

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

One after another, fishing boats leave the shore and go out to sea. The old man loves the sea, he thinks of it with tenderness, as of a woman. Having baited the hooks, Santiago slowly floats with the flow, mentally communicating with the birds and fish. Accustomed to loneliness, the old man talks aloud to himself.

Before, when he was left alone, he sang; He sometimes sang at night, while on watch, when he was sailing on large sailboats or hunting for turtles.

The old man knows the 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 near the school of tuna that will like his sardines. Soon the old man notices a slight trembling of the flexible green rod, which replaces his fishing rod. The line goes down, and the old man feels the enormous weight of the fish that has bitten.

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

About four hours pass. Evening is approaching. The old man’s hands are cut, he throws the fishing line over his back and places a bag under it. Now Santiago can lean against the side of the boat and rest for a while.

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

Night. The fish pulls the boat further and further from the shore. The old man is tired, but the thought of 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 talks to the fish: “I will not part with you until I die.”

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

Alone, on the open sea, he was tightly tied to such a large 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, pulls the boat along with it, and the old man gathers strength to hold it. Not believing in God, he reads the “Our Father.”

Another day passes. To distract himself, the old man remembers baseball games. He remembers how he once measured strength in a Casablanca tavern with a powerful black man, the most strong man in the port, how they sat at the table for a whole day, without giving up, and how he, in the end, gained the upper hand. He took part in similar fights more than once, won, but then gave it up, deciding that he needed his right hand for fishing.

The battle with the fish continues. Santiago holds the forest right hand, knowing that when the strength runs out, it will be replaced by the left one, the cramp in which has long passed. A small fishing rod catches a mackerel. The old man reinforces his strength with it, although this fish is not at all tasty. He feels sorry for the big fish that has nothing to eat, but this does not diminish his determination to kill it.

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, sometimes approaching the boat, sometimes moving 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. Because of fatigue, thoughts are confused in the old man’s head, and black spots dance before his eyes. Santiago gathers his remaining strength and plunges the harpoon into the fish's side.

And then the fish came to life, although it already carried death within itself - it rose high above the water, as if boasting of 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 sail to get home.

An hour passes before the first shark appears, having swum 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 her skull. She sinks to the bottom, taking with her a harpoon, part of a 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 push of the shark on the boat meant a piece of torn off 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 just before sunset. The old man drives them away with blows to the head with his baton, but at night they return. Santiago fights the predators first with a club, then with a sharp piece of tiller. Finally the sharks swim away: they have nothing left to eat.

An old man enters the cove near his hut in the dead of night. Having removed the mast and tied the sail, he wanders towards 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 the 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 the old man coffee, calms him down 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 in 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 don’t understand anything - they are too far from this life.

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