The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Genre:

Classics & Adventure

Publication Date:

June 10, 1996 (first published in 1952)

# of Pages:

132

Santiago is the main character in this book. He is an old fisherman who has not caught any fish in almost 3 months. He has a young apprentice and friend, Manolin, who has been forced to not go fishing with him because he does not catch any fish. The old man is determined to break his unlucky streak and sets out farther on the sea then he usually does. While out there he hooks a fish that instead of it being easy to pull in, it starts to pull Santiago's boat.

Trying to make sure that the fish does not snap his line, he ends up getting in a lot of bodily pain. The fish ends up pulling Santiago into a dangerous current. Santiago eventually kills the fish and gets it in the boat, however, this ends up causing more trouble for Santiago on his way home. When Santiago gets home, he is not completely empty handed. Instead, what he comes home with is not what others think that it is.

The Old Man and the Sea is the first book I've read by Ernest Hemingway. I read this book my junior year of high school. We took turns reading it aloud in the classroom, and I still kind of found the book painful to get through. After we read the book, we watched the movie. I found the movie a little more interesting than I did the book, which is usually not the case with me. If this book had not been required for my literature class at the time, I may have not finished it. I would not recommend this book to anyone unless I was to reread this book. Now even though I did not like this book, it does teach a valuable lesson. It teaches us to never give up and that every victory does not have to meet everyone else standards to be a victory. I do commend Santiago for his bravery. I just was not interested in the way the book taught those lessons.