Unit 1 The Old Man and the Sea

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Unit 1The Old Man and the Sea

• Lecturer Zhu Kunling ???
• 02/2008

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Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

• -American writer
• -Winner of Nobel Prize for Literature
• -A legendary figure in American literature

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• Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois.
• His father was fond of hunting and fishing, who
  often took young Ernest with him on his trips.
• His style of living as an adult and the fact that
  his books abound in sports terms are partly
  traceable to his early life (sports and primary
  writing).

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• Later he hunted and explored in the African
  jungles, and fished on the Cuban seas.
• During WWI, he served as an ambulance driver in
  Italy
• During WWII, he first worked for the US navy and
  then acted as a reporter with the British Air
  Force.
• He was wounded many times and suffered over a
  dozen injuries to the brain. All these sports and
  war experiences became his subjects and themes
  later.

5

• In World War I, Hemingway served as an ambulance
  driver working with the Red Cross in Europe. This
  led to the crucial happenings of his life.
• He was the first American to be wounded in that
  war.

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• His shattering war experience permanently
  affected his life and writings.
• In some sense, all his life, he lived with war
  emotionally and continued to write about it in
  order to relieve and forget it.

7

• Back to America, he met Sherwood Anderson, his
  stylistic mentor.
• Acting on Andersons advice, he went to Paris,
  carrying Andersons letters of introduction to
  Stein and Pound, and he benefited a lot from
  their schooling.

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• As a journalist, Hemingway trained himself in the
  economy of expression.
• His use of short sentences and paragraphs and
  vigorous, positive language, and the deliberate
  avoidance of gorgeous adjectives are the traces
  of his early journalistic practices.

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• In Paris, Hemingways distinct style began to
  develop, with a Hemingway theme and a Hemingway
  hero.
• All his life, Hemingway wrote about one theme,
  grace under pressure, and created one hero who
  acts that theme out.

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• In In Our Time (1925), Nick Adams is a Hemingway
  protagonist, living in a world of violence,
  disorder and death, and learning the hard way
  about what the world is.
• His psychological emotional wound is followed
  by a physical wound in the war. He makes a
  separate peace with the enemy and learns to
  endure as a man.

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• Most of Hemingways later works are a repetition
  of the Nick Adams stories.
• We feel perpetually assailed by a sharp sense of
  anxiety and fear as we subconsciously identify
  ourselves with Nick in our reading.

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• In 1926, he published The Sun Also Rises
  (??????), which painted the image of the Lost
  Generation.
• Lost Generation Young people in the US and the
  UK who were lost or disillusioned with the world.
  They were cut off from old values and could not
  come to terms with the new era when civilization
  had gone mad.(?????)

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• In his another major novel, A Farewell to Arms
  (1928,?????), the hero Fredric Henry goes to the
  war and discovers the insanity and unreason of
  the world. He becomes disillusioned and
  embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and
  sacrifice.
• This book caught the mood of the post-war
  generation, and brought international fame to
  young Hemingway. He was the speaker and describer
  of the Lost Generation.

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• The Hemingway heros break with society becomes
  extreme in his books Death in the Afternoon
  (1932), Green Hills of Africa (1935) and For Whom
  the Bell Tolls (1940).

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• In Hemingways chaotic and meaningless world, man
  fights a solitary struggle against a force he
  does not understand. The awareness that he must
  end in defeat, no matter how hard he fights
  against it, engenders a sense of despair.

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• But the Hemingway hero possesses despairing
  courage. It is this courage that enables a man
  to behave like a man, to assert his dignity in
  face of adversity. This is the essence of a code
  of honor in which all the Hemingway heroes
  believe.

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• Between 1940 and 1950, critics all agreed that
  Hemingways talent was dead.
• But The Old Man and the Sea (1952) helped restore
  his literary image, which led to his winning of
  the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

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• It is about an old fisherman Santiago and his
  battle with a giant marlin fish. Santiago hooks
  the fish in the sea in the following desperate
  struggle, he manages to kill the fish, but he has
  to fight a more desperate battle with sharks,
  which eat up the marlin and leave only a
  skeleton. The old man brings it home, totally
  exhausted.

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• In Santiago we see again the spirit of the tragic
  but noble Hemingway hero, contending with a force
  he knows it is futile to fight with. He believes
  that a man is not made for defeatA man can be
  destroyed but not defeated.

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• However, the old man eventually realizes that he
  has met his doom, and he feels good to be in the
  human and natural world. This feeling of
  brotherhood and love for both his fellowmen and
  fellow creatures in nature shows that Hemingways
  world view has undergone a profound change.

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• Hemingway -- a legendary figure
• -He was a glamorous public hero, whose style of
  writing and living was probably more imitated
  than any other writer.
• -He acted out the theme of his books, and his
  public image was one of a tough guy whom even an
  air-crash could not kill.

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• During the 1930s and 1940s his non-literary
  activities were widely publicized.
• During World War II, he worked for the US navy in
  Cuba and then served with the British Air Force
  as a reporter.
• He took part in the landing of the Allied Force
  (??) on the French coast.

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• He was injured many times and survived three
  automobile accidents and two air crashes. From
  wounds in the war, 237 steel fragments were taken
  out of his body.
• In his later years he often behaved in an odd
  manner. Possibly because he could not write any
  more, or because he could not act out his code,
  or because of his ill health, he shot himself on
  July 2, 1961. With his death, an era came to an
  end.

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• Hemingway was a negative writer (?????????) it
  is difficult for him to say yes.
• He held a dark, naturalistic (??????) view of the
  world, saw it as all a nothing, and saw life in
  terms of battles and tension, which was
  nothingness (??) for him.

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• All his works dramatize this concept life is
  dangerous and always ready to defeat and destroy
  you, but if you stand on your principles, you may
  win on your own terms, though you get nothing
  except the knowledge that you have played well.

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• The typical Hemingway situations are usually
  characterized by chaos and violence, by crime,
  death, sport, hard drinking and sexual
  promiscuity.
• The typical Hemingway hero is one who, wounded
  but strong and sensitive, enjoys the pleasures of
  life (sex, alcohol, sport, etc.) in face of ruin
  and death, and maintains, through some code of
  behavior, an ideal of himself.

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• In the latter years of his life, he was known as
  Papa Hemingway. This compliment refers mainly
  to his contribution to the development of a new
  stylethe colloquial style.
• Commentators all agree on the simplicity and
  naturalness of his prose, and its effect of
  directness, clarity and freshness.

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• He always chose common, specific, Anglo-Saxon,
  casual and conversational words. And he employed
  them in short, simple sentences, which are
  patterned, conversational, and sometimes
  ungrammatical.
• But his stylistic simplicity can often be
  deceptive, as it is highly suggestive and offers
  layers of undercurrents of meaning.
• Hence Hemingways Iceberg Theory-- 1/8 is above
  the water and 7/8 is hidden below.

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• Reading him, we experience the immediacy and
  directness of a person wounded by a bullet and
  trying to talk before he dies.

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• Terse (???), effective, and no nonsensethese are
  the obvious effects of his prose.
• Hemingways influence as a stylist was neatly
  expressed in the praise of the Nobel Prize
  Committee
• his powerful style-forming mastery of the art
  of writing modern fiction.

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• Some important books of Hemingways
• 1925 In Our Time The Torrents of Spring
• 1926The Sun Also Rises
• 1928 A Farewell to Arms
• 1932 Death in the Afternoon
• 1935 Green Hills of Africa
• 1937 To Have and Have Not
• 1938 The Fifth Column
• 1952 The Old Man and the Sea
• He also wrote a lot of short stories.

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The Old Man and the Sea

• This excerpt is about the old mans fight with
  the sharks.
• In most of his novels, Hemingway deliberately
  avoided gorgeous adjectives. But in this novel,
  we find, strangely, that he used adjectives quite
  often. Think of the reason.

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• Warm-up questions
• 1. What do you think of Hemingway himself and his
  books, plots and characters?
• 2. Have you read the Chinese version of the
  novel? If yes, what is your impression of the
  book and the old man? If no, what do you imagine
  it to be?
• 3. Can you imagine the old mans appearance,
  character and life? When you read the following
  passage, think of three to five words to describe
  him.

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• The shark was not an accident. He had come up
  from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of
  blood had settled and dispersed in the mile deep
  sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely
  without caution that he broke the surface of the
  blue water and was in the sun.

• The shark came to attack. Bad news for the old
  man and the fish it would eat the fish, and the
  blood smell would attract more sharks.
• These sentences are not short, but you can find
  and and other indicators to separate different
  meanings.

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• everything about him was beautiful except his
  jaws. Inside the closed double lip of his jaws
  all of his eight rows of teeth were slanted
  inwards. They were nearly as long as the
  fingers of the old man and they had razor-sharp
  cutting edges on both sides. This was a fish
  built to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that
  were so fast and strong and well armed that they
  had no other enemy.

• This was a beautiful but ferocious shark.
• Note the description of his beauty and
  speedheroic for the old man.
• Note the detailed description of his teeth he
  could conquer anything and was ready to attack
  the old mans fish.

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• When the old man saw him coming he knew that this
  was a shark that had no fear at all and would do
  exactly what he wished. He prepared the harpoon
  and made the rope fast while he watched the shark
  come on. The rope was short as it lacked what he
  had cut away to lash the fish.

• The old man realized the danger and threat. And
  he would do what he should to fight it and
  defend the fish.
• No nonsense in the language.

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• The old mans head was clear and good now and he
  was full of resolution but he had little hope. It
  was too good to last, he thought. He took one
  look at the great fish as he watched the shark
  close in. It might as well have been a dream, he
  thought. I cannot keep him from hitting me but
  maybe I can get him. Dentuso, he thought. Bad
  luck to your mother.

• The old man was ready for the fight, but he knew
  his fight was useless.
• He wished it were a dream there was no hope for
  himself and the fish.
• Even if he could kill this shark, more sharks
  would come.

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• The sharks head was out of water and his back
  was coming out and the old man could hear the
  noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish
  when he rammed the harpoon down onto the sharks
  head at a spot where the line between his eyes
  intersected with the line that ran straight back
  from his nose. There were no such lines.

• The fight the old man killed the shark with his
  harpoon.
• There were no such lines. Such lines were not
  in the shark physically, but in the old mans
  mind and fishing knowledge. He was experienced on
  the sea.

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• He was wounded, but he fought with all his will
  and might, although he knew it was hopeless to
  defend the fish.

• He hit it with his blood mushed hands driving a
  good harpoon with all his strength. He hit it
  without hope but with resolution and complete
  malignancy.

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• He took about forty pounds, the old man said
  aloud. He took my harpoon too and all the rope,
  he thought, and now my fish bleeds again and
  there will be others.

• It was a sad scene.
• The old man was sad because the fish was damaged.
  And he lost his harpoon and rope. And more sharks
  would attack.

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• He did not like to look at the fish anymore since
  he had been mutilated. When the fish had been hit
  it was as though he himself were hit.

• Why did the old man pity the fish damaged by the
  shark?
• Because he thought the fish was humiliated, its
  dignity gone.
• Why did he have little hope even though he was
  full of resolution?
• Because he knew he could not kill all the coming
  sharks.

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• But I killed the shark that hit my fish, he
  thought. And he was the biggest dentuso that I
  have ever seen. And God knows that I have seen
  big ones.
• It was too good to last, he thought. I wish it
  had been a dream now and that I had never hooked
  the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers

• He was proud of killing the sharks because by
  doing this he was showing his power and dignity
  as a fisherman.
• It was too good to last the thing was not
  true it would disappear ultimately.
• He wished he were in a dream and had not caught
  the fish. Why?
• Because if he had not caught the fish, its
  dignity would not be damaged.

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• But man is not made for defeat, he said. A man
  can be destroyed but not defeated.1 I am sorry
  that I killed the fish though, he thought. Now
  the bad time is coming and I do not even have the
  harpoon. The dentuso is cruel and able and strong
  and intelligent. But I was more intelligent than
  he was. Perhaps not, he thought. Perhaps I was
  only better armed.

• 1 What does sentence this suggest of the old
  mans character and the novels theme?
• The Hemingway heroism Hemingway hero and the
  despairing courage. This courage enables a man
  to behave like a man, to assert dignity in face
  of adversity.
• The old man used good words to describe the
  shark, because, in his mind, it was heroic as
  well, like himself.

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• Dont think, old man, he said aloud. Sail on
  this course and take it when it comes.
• But I must think, he thought. Because it is all I
  have left. That and baseball. I wonder how the
  great DiMaggio would have liked the way I hit him
  in the brain?

• The old man always thought of heroes such as the
  great DiMaggio.
• He had heroes to admire, although he himself was
  a hero.

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• Think about something cheerful, old man, he
  said. Every minute now you are closer to home.
  You sail lighter for the loss of forty pounds.

• He tried to find an excuse to cheer himself up.
• In this part of the old mans monolog,
  Hemingways colloquial style is very distinct
  easy words, short sentences, and tense atmosphere.

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• He knew quite well the pattern of what could
  happen when he reached the inner part of the
  current. But there was nothing to be done now.
• Yes there is, he said aloud. I can lash my
  knife to the butt of one of the oars.
• So he did that with the tiller under his arm and
  the sheet of the sail under his foot.
• Now, he said. I am still an old man. But I am
  not unarmed.

• The pattern the fishs blood would be spread by
  the current and attract more sharks.
• He was rearmed now as he made a new weapon.
• I am still an old man. But I am not unarmed.
  Although I am old, I still can fight.

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• It is silly not to hope, he thought.1 Besides I
  believe it is a sin. Do not think about sin, he
  thought. There are enough problems now without
  sin. Also I have no understanding of it.

• 1 He still had hope. What was his hope?
• His hope was to defend his and the fishs
  dignity, rather than the physical fish.
• He thought about sin He believed that he sinned
  by killing the fish, for otherwise the fish would
  not lose its dignity.

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• I have no understanding of it and I am not sure
  that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to
  kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did
  it to keep me alive and feed many people. But
  then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin.
  It is much too late for that and there are people
  who are paid to do it. Let them think about it.
  You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was
  born to be a fish.

• The old man was not religious (sin was a
  religious concept). He believed not in God, but
  in himselfhis will, dignity and might.
• there are people who are paid to do it It was
  a thinker or philosophers job to think about
  sin. The old man was a naturalistic fisherman,
  who believed that a fisherman is to kill, and a
  fish is to be killed.

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• 1 He believed that it was a sin to kill the
  fish, but he also believed that himself and the
  fish were both great. He was proud of being a
  fisherman, because he believed in a fishermans
  philosophy.
• He killed the fish, not because he wanted to make
  money, but because he wanted to show his pride
  and to prove himself a true fisherman, and he
  always loved the fish, because he admired its
  dignity and beauty.

• But he liked to think about all things that he
  was involved in ... You did not kill the fish
  only to keep alive and to sell for food, he
  thought. You killed him for pride and because you
  are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive
  and you loved him after. If you love him, it is
  not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?1

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• But you enjoyed killing the dentuso, he thought.
  He lives on the live fish as you do. He is not a
  scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some
  sharks are. He is beautiful and noble and knows
  no fear of anything.1

• He lives on the live fish as you do. This is
  the old mans and Hemingways philosophy
  everything has a right to live, and everything
  kills everything else for that purpose.
• 1 He also strangely admired the shark noble,
  beautiful, and fearless. Because the shark was
  heroic and dignified, just like he himself and
  the fish.

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• I killed him in self-defense, the old man said
  aloud. And I killed him well.1
• Besides, he thought, everything kills everything
  else in some way. Fishing kills me exactly as it
  keeps me alive. The boy keeps me alive, he
  thought. I must not deceive myself too much.

• 1 He found an excuse for killing the shark
  self-defense. It is acceptable that everything
  kills everything else. This implies his
  philosophy.
• Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive.
  fishing is very dangerous throughout my life, and
  it keeps me alive.

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• He had sailed for two hours, ... when he saw the
  first of the two sharks.1
• Ay, he said aloud. There is no translation for
  this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as
  a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail
  go through his hands and into the wood.
• They were hateful sharks, bad smelling,
  scavengers as well as killers, and when they were
  hungry they would bite at an oar or the rudder of
  a boat.

• 1 Two more sharks come. He got ready to fight
  them.
• He felt painful, for he knew a hard, desperate
  and hopeless battle would begin, and he knew they
  were extremely ferocious.

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• Ay, the old man said. Galanos. Come on
  galanos.
• They came. The line showed clearly on the top
  of his brown head and back where the brain joined
  the spinal cord and the old man drove the knife
  on the oar into the juncture, withdrew it, and
  drove it in again into the sharks yellow
  cat-like eyes. The shark let go of the fish and
  slid down, swallowing what he had taken as he
  died.

• He felt pain, but still was determined to fight
  the sharks. And he killed it.

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• They must have taken a quarter of him and of the
  best meat, he said aloud. I wish it were a
  dream and that I had never hooked him. I'm sorry
  about it, fish. It makes everything wrong. He
  stopped and he did not want to look at the fish
  now. Drained of blood and awash he looked the
  color of the silver backing of a mirror and his
  stripes still showed.

• I'm sorry about it, fish. It makes everything
  wrong. it is me who caused the loss of your
  dignity. Therefore he felt sad for the fish and
  did not want to look at it.

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• I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish, he
  said. Neither for you nor for me. Im sorry,
  fish.1
• Now, he said to himself. Look to the lashing on
  the knife and see if it has been cut. Then get
  your hand in order because there still is more to
  come.

• 1 He went out too far, so he regretted and was
  very tired. And it was bad for the fish because
  he had caught it and it was eaten by the sharks.
• He knew more sharks would come, and he got ready
  to fight again.

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• I wish I had a stone for the knife, the old man
  said after he had checked the lashing on the oar
  butt. I should have brought a stone. You should
  have brought many things, he thought. But you did
  not bring them, old man. Now is no time to think
  of what you do not have. Think of what you can do
  with what there is.
• You give me much good counsel, he said aloud.
  Im tired of it.

• His head was a little unclear now.
• You he himself.

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• He was a fish to keep a man all winter, he
  thought.1 Dont think of that. Just rest and
  try to get your hands in shape to defend what is
  left of him. The blood smell from my hands means
  nothing now with all that scent in the water.2
  Besides they do not bleed much. There is nothing
  cut that means anything. The bleeding may keep
  the left from cramping.

• 1 In what way was the fish valuable to the old
  man?
• He could sell it for money or eat its meat.
• 2 The blood smell of the fish overwhelmed the
  blood smell of his hands.
• The old man was almost in ruins now wounded and
  exhausted.

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• What can I think of now? He thought. Nothing. I
  must think of nothing and wait for the next ones.
  I wish it had really been a dream, he thought.
  But who knows? It might have turned out well.1

• 1 Anything could happen. He was ready to accept
  it as fortune or misfortune. But he still had
  hope.

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• Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old
  to club sharks to death. But I will try it as
  long as I have the oars and the short club and
  the tiller.

• He was too old and tired, but he would never give
  in to the sharks nor give up his hope.

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• I could not expect to kill them, he thought. I
  could have in my time.
• He did not want to look at the fish. He knew that
  half of him had been destroyed. The sun had gone
  down while he had been in the fight with the
  sharks.
• It will be dark soon, he said. Then I should
  see the glow of Havana. If I am too far to the
  eastward I will see the lights of one of the new
  beaches.

• He could have killed them in his younger days.
• He was eager to go home and be in the human
  world, as he knew he had met his doom in the
  natural world on the sea.

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• I cannot be too far out now, he thought. I hope
  no one has been too worried. There is only the
  boy to worry, of course. But I am sure he would
  have confidence. Many of the older fishermen will
  worry. Many others too, he thought. I live in a
  good town.1

• 1 He thought of the kindly people in his town
  and the boy, who were worried about him. He was
  tired of being alone.

62

• Half fish, he said. Fish that you were. I am
  sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both.
  But we have killed many sharks, you and I, and
  ruined many others. How many did you ever kill,
  old fish? You do not have that spear on your head
  for nothing. 1

• 1 He felt sorry that half of the fish was eaten
  by sharks. But he was determined to fight.
• He talked with the fish both of them had killed
  many sharksthey were fighting together. He
  wanted to use the fishs bill as a weapon, a
  spear.

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• But if I had, and could have lashed it to an oar
  butt, what a weapon. Then we might have fought
  them together. What will you do now if they come
  in the night? What can you do?
• Fight them, he said. Ill fight them until I
  die.1

• 1 He was determined to fight the sharks until
  he died. He would never be defeated.

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• This is the excerpt of the novel. Can you imagine
  what the old man would do then?
• What other real or literary figures are similar
  to the old man?
• Use your own words to summarize the plot, the
  old mans character and philosophy, and
  Hemingways style.

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Multiple-choice questions

• 1. What did the old man lose during his fight
  with the first shark?
• A. Some meat from the fish that was taken away by
  the shark.
• B. The old mans harpoon that was taken away by
  the shark.
• C. The old mans rope that was taken away by the
  shark.
• D. All of the above.

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• 2. What was the main reason for the old man to
  kill the marlin fish?
• A. To keep himself alive.
• B. To prove that he was still a proud old man.
• C. To attract the sharks.
• D. To sell the marlin fish for money.

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• 3. Why did the old man feel sorry for the marlin
  fish when the sharks attacked it?
• A. Because the marlin fish was humiliated as far
  as its pride and dignity was concerned.
• B. Because he could not take the whole marlin
  fish home.
• C. Because he could not earn much money by
  selling the mutilated marlin fish.
• D. Because the marlin fish was suffering great
  pain.

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• 4. What did the old man do when he was really
  tired?
• A. He gave up his struggle with the sharks
  altogether.
• B. His determination to defend his and the marlin
  fishs dignity kept him struggling with the
  sharks.
• D. He gave up his struggle with the sharks
  altogether.
• C. His determination to defend his and the marlin
  fishs dignity prevented him from struggling with
  the sharks.

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Comprehension questions

• 1. What is the excerpt about? Why did the old man
  love the marlin but still kill it?
• 2. Why did the old man use positive words to
  comment on the sharks while he was determined to
  fight them?
• 3. The old man said, But man is not made for
  defeat. A man can be destroyed but not
  defeated. What does this imply about his
  character? Does it have anything to do with the
  Hemingway hero?

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Brainstorming and discussion

• 1. Discuss with your partners
• (1) Suppose you had not caught any fish for 84
  days and was laughed at by other fishermen, what
  would you do?
• (2) Suppose you were confronted with ferocious
  sharks at sea all by yourself, what would you do?
• 2. Creative writing Imagine how the old man
  fished at sea, fought the great marlin and
  finally killed it.

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Good-bye!