The Old man and the Sea: Question 3: Part 2- Strength and Skill

Another important theme that surfaces throughout the novella would be how in the absence of strength, skill and experience will get the same results. Not saying that the old man isn’t strong, but he is equally, if not more, skilled and experienced because he has spent his entire life fishing.

The old man and the boy frequently talk of how the old man is “strange” which I thought at first meant strange as in weird because he talked to himself, but by the end of the book, I understood that it meant that he was different than “normal” old men. He could still see well even after he went “turtle-ing for years off the Mosquito Coast”, which is supposedly very hard on the eyes, while other men younger than him, like the fisherman the boy fishes with, were starting to get bad eyesight, and they never even went turtling (Hemingway 15-16). Even the old man admits that he is not like most old men when he is talking to the boy. “’I am a strange old man.’ ‘But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?’ ‘I think so. And there are many tricks.’” (Hemingway 16) The previous quote also shows that he knows he may not be strong enough to bring in a large fish, but he knows that he is skilled enough to. Later, the old man also says “I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.” (Hemingway 23)

When he starts to catch the fish, he “held the line delicately, and softly, with his left hand, unleashed it from the stick. Now he could let it run through his fingers without the fish feeling any tension.” I think that this shows how skillful the old man is and that he knows no matter how strong he is, pulling on the line now will not do him any good (Hemingway 36). Later though, when the fish has taken the hook, he shows his strength, “’Now!’ he said aloud and struck hard with both hands, gained a yard of line and then struck again and again, swinging with each arm alternately on the cord with all the strength of his arms and the pivoted weight of his body.” (Hemingway 37)

It is hard to definitively say whether the old man’s strength or skill is the reason that he ended up catching the fish, but I think that he needed to have both to even get close to accomplishing what he did.

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