Inspirational Aspects and some Archetypal Images in “The Old Man and the Sea”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - III

Paper no.E-C-303

Year – 2011

Topic: Inspirational Aspects and some Archetypal Images in “The Old Man and the Sea”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

The Noble prize winning book “The Old Man and The Sea, written by Ernest Hemingway, is an inspirational story of the old man which shows the indomitable spirit of its protagonist, the old man. Ernest Hemingway is an American writer, who also won Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His other works like, “Three Stories and Ten Poems “in 1923, “In Our Time “in 1926, “The Torrents of Spring” in 1926, “The Sun also Arises” in 1926, “A Farewell to Arms” in 1929, “Men Without Women “in 1927, “Winner Take Nothing “in 1933, “Death in the Afternoon” in 1932, “The Green Hills of Africa” in 1932, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” in 1940. His “The Old Man and the Sea” is a parable-novella about man’s struggle against Nature. Hemingway is known for his laconic writing. Hemingway worked for “The Kansas City Star” for sometime. There he learned some stylistic lessons that later those all things reflected in his fiction. The newspaper advocated short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy. Hemingway later said: “Those were the best rules, I ever learned for the business of writing. I have never forgotten them.”

Hemingway committed suicide in 1961. He is remembered as one of the greatest stylistic innovators of Modern American Literature. Before discussing the inspirational aspects, let us see the origination of the American Literature in brief.

Prose, Fiction and Non-fiction of the American colonies and the United States written in the English language from about 1600 to the present time captures America’s quest to understand and define itself. From the beginning America was unique in the diversity of its inhabitants; over time they arrived from all parts of the world. Although English quickly became the language of America, regional and ethnic dialects have enlivened and enriched the country’s literature almost from the start. Today, American prose encompasses a variety of tradition and voices that share a common context: the geographical region now known as the United States. Native American Literatures which were largely oral at the time of colonial settlement stand apart as a separate tradition that is itself strong and varied.

For its first two hundred years American prose reflected the settlement and the growth of the American colonies, largely through histories, religious writings, and expeditions and travel- narratives. Biography also played an important role especially in America’s search for native heroes. Fiction appeared only after the colonies gained independence, when the clamor for a uniquely American Literature brought forth novels based on events in America’s past. With a flowering of prose in the mid 1800s, the young nation found its own voice. By then fiction had become the dominant literature genre in America. In the 20^th century, American Literature took its place on the world stage and began to exert influence on other literatures.

The First American Fiction:-

        American fiction became formally established only after the American Revolution. “The power of sympathy (1789)”, a tragic love-story by William Hill Brown, is generally considered the first American Novel. Charles Brockden Brown is among the best remembered novelists of the period. His “Wieland; or The Transformation” (1798) is a cleverly plotted horror story that emphasizes dark, supernatural visions. Other notable novels of the time include Susanna Rowson’s “Charlotte Temple” (1791), a tragic romance that involves a young woman’s journey from England to the colonies during the revolutions; Gilbert Imlay’s “The Emigrants” (1793), the story of an English family whose life improves in America; and Hannah Foster’s “The Coquette” (1797), a novel; in the form of letters.

(- From Microsoft Encarta)

In the novella, “The Old Man and The sea”, the writer, Ernest Hemingway has put a picture of the old man which shows unbeatable courage of the Old Man that suggest us not to quit our efforts towards our struggle. Another thing in this novella that Hemingway has put the names: “Santiago” and “Sea”, both shows their strength. It can be considered in this way also. Santiago shows his indomitable spirit and the sea as name suggests, shows its strengths also. In this way, we can say that Hemingway has drawn the similarity between the sea and Santiago to show Santiago’s unshakable spirit.

In this novella, Santiago has become an inspirational character for readers. Santiago is a skilled and talented fisherman in Cuba. The novella starts with the words like: “He was an old man who fished alone in his skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” Now, we can, here, see that Santiago has failed to fish for eight-four times. He is also tagged as “Salao” which is known as the worst form of unlucky. Then even, he never leaves a hope to get success in his life. This spirit has made his character immortal in his reader’s mind. He tells to the boy, Manolin,

“Tomorrow is going to be a good day…”

And also he says to Manolin,

“Eighty-five is a lucky number…”

Santiago always encourages himself and his efforts for his success, as well as the readers. From these two quotations, we can sense about the Old Man’s spirit. That’s how a reader can learn a lesson that you success depends on your attempts, how well you can do, if not then, never lose your courage. You should keep trying to achieve your goal. All these things are motivated by the incredible character, Santiago to his readers.

Santiago also shows his calm nature in this novella. When the other fishermen make fun of him, he never gets angry. This shows his Excellencies in behaving with society. But when he returns back with Marlin, Nobody makes fun of him. Everybody is surprised by watching Marlin in the boat of Santiago. In a way, he inspires us that if you fail to achieve something, people will perhaps make fun of you, but you should not concentrate on that thing. You should concentrate on your goal then and then you can achieve it. When Manolin asked,

“But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”

At that time, the Old Man replies,

“I think so. And there are many tricks?”

This shows the Old Man’s determination for catching a big fish. He has many tricks for fishing and he is, after all, a skilled-fisherman. One thing, here, we must observe that is the old man’s nature. He does not boast for his Excellencies and skillfulness in fishing to Manolin. He just says that I think that I can do it and perhaps, we must also have this “I can do it attitude” in our life. All these aspects of the old man’s character motivate us in our life. Hemingway has created the heroism in the character of the Old Man. In a way that it has become an inspiration for his readers.

Our life is full of struggle and at that time, her, I recall some lines of the poem “Agnipath” by Harivansh Rai Bachchan,

“Agnipath, Agnipath, Agnipath

Tu na Thakega Kabhi

Tu na Thamega Kabhi

Tu na Mudega Kabhi . . .”

The above mentioned lines are somewhere relevant to “The Old Man and the Sea”, by Ernest Hemingway, has presented the story in the terms of the mentioned poem, “Agnipath”. Though Santiago is an Old Man, he tries hard to attain his goal. He struggles to live his life in a dignified manner. The indomitable spirit of the Old Man propels him and gives him courage to cope with the situation like, when he is surrounded by the Sharks in the sea. In this scene, Sharks stand for human predicament, and one must fight to gain something in life.

Santiago has desire to do something that he has never done and his staunchness make for his desire make dream comes true. But it is achieved by striving on your goal that the old man does. This is how, the character is telling us to never give up and be courageous. Your attempt will not fail, if you will try with the determination to accomplish your goal.

Here, in this novella, we can see some archetypal images like, wise Old Man, Sea, journey and Blue color. All these images can be analyzed by archetypal theory. Before we see those archetypal images, let us discuss what is Archetypal Criticism?

Archetypal Criticism:-

In literary criticism the term “archetype” denotes recurrent narratives, patterns of action, designs, character types, themes, and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature as well as in myths dreams and even social rituals. Such recurrent items are held to be the result of elemental and universal forms or patterns in the human psyche, whose effective embodiment in a literary work evokes a profound response from the attentive reader, because he or she shares the archetypes expressed by the author. An important antecedent of the literary theory of the archetype was the treatment of myth by a group of comparative anthropologists at Cambridge University, especially James G. Frazer, whose The Golden Bough (1890-1915) identified elemental patterns of myth and ritual that, he claimed, recur in the legends and ceremonials of diverse and far-flung cultures and religions. An even more important antecedent was the depth psychology of Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), who applied the term "archetype" to what he called "primordial images," the "psychic residue" of repeated patterns of common human experience in the lives of our very ancient ancestors which, he maintained, survive in ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM the "collective unconscious" of the human race and are expressed in myths, religion, dreams, and private fantasies, as well as in works of literature.

Archetypal Literary criticism was given impetus by Maud Bodkin’s “Archetypal Patterns in Poetry” (1934) and flourished especially during the 1950s and 1960s. Apart from him, the other prominent practitioners of various modes of Archetypal Criticism were G. Wilson Knight, Robert Graves, Philip Wheelwright, Rishard chase, Leslie Filder and Joseph Campbell.

(-From M.H. Abrams “A Handbook of Literary Terms”)

Northrop Frye is a very well-known in the world of Archetypal Literary Theory. His major works “Anatomy of Criticism” deals with archetypes. Now let’s see the image of archetypes.

In this novella, “The Old Man and The Sea”, the first image of archetype is of the old man (Santiago) who symbolizes for his knowledge, wisdom, experience and morality. But somewhere, somewhat the character of the old man of this novella is different from the archetypal image of the Old Man. When he goes too far in the sea, at that time, he thinks that I should have not come too far in the sea. so being an experienced and knowledgeable fisherman, he does mistakes in his fishing and this incident shows his error of judgement.

The second Archetypal image that we can find, that is sea, which symbolizes Death and Rebirth both. After returning from the sea with Marlin, this thing gives rebirth to the old man’s identity. By doing this thing, he washes out the tag of ‘Salao’. Then the Old Man’s journey to achieve or do the thing that he has never done in the sea. By getting Marlin his purpose of journey is attained by him.

Then, the archetypal image is the color blue, we can find in the novella. This blue color symbolizes highly positivity and tranquility. These both characteristics can be found in the Old Man’s character of this novella. As we earlier discussed that he has calm nature.

At last, I would like to write the famous line of this novella which has become slogan of this novella as well as the reader’s life. Hemingway writes,

“A man can be destroyed but can not be defeated”

Hope is a kind of thing that can give a life to those people who have lost the opportunity to attain their goal. After all, a man is a mere creature. You can destroy him but can not destroy his faith, his hope and his courage. The old man always shows a hope that if not today then tomorrow definitely I will achieve my goal.

During the course of text, Santiago raises the level of hope and courage in their reader’s mind. Santiago becomes the inspiration of his readers and they are molded in a way that anyone can say, “Yes, I can do it”.

Conclusion:-

In conclusion, I would like to say that, Hemingway starts this novella with the words like “He was an old man…” but when he ends the text, the character achieves the definite article ‘The’ as “The Old Man” and then it becomes the SPECIFIC character in the novella. So, the character’s journey is like from the Ordinary to Excellent.