The Old Man and the Sea: Question 3: Part 1- Perseverance

Old Man and the Sea is full of themes, mostly because there has to be something else to talk about other than the old man catching a fish. Since there are so many, I think that I am going to try and get as many blogs out of each of them that I can.

One of the most obvious themes in this book would be perseverance. The main reasons I say this is because there’s many examples throughout the book. The most obvious one would be the old man not giving up on catching the fish, even after he knows he should let it go for his own safety. He knows he could easily starve or get too far out to sea if the fish went on for too long, but the old man really wanted the fish, so there was no way he was going to let it go.

Another example of perseverance would be the little boy not wanting to give up on the old man, no matter how unlucky he seemed to be. The only reason that the boy didn’t go with the old man was because the old man told him to stay with the “lucky” boat he was working on (Hemingway 15). Even after the old man tells him this, he still wants to help in some way so that he feels like he is repaying the old man for teaching him how to fish (Hemingway 14).

One example of perseverance in the book was more subtle than the other examples, but since it was repeated several times throughout the book, it made it a little bit easier to spot. This would be the perseverance of the lions in the old man’s dreams. The quotes “He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach,” and “He never dreamed about the boy,” both show that the lions are the main thing that still perseveres (Hemingway 23). The old man realizes that it is strange that he only dreams about the lions when he says “I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is left?” (Hemingway 52). I think that the lions are the only thing that is left is because they remind him of himself because they are both hunters and they both take down prey that is much bigger and stronger than them, mostly because of their skill (and I guess the sharp claws and fangs would help too)

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1980. Kindle. Web. 21 June 2011.