The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Page 12.

[September] ‘The month when the great fish come…Anyone can be a fisherman in May’ – part of the call to a final, last heroic effort from Santiago. He wants to prove he isn’t finished by going out into the furthest ocean depths and catching a huge, fully-grown marlin.

Page 13.

‘Who gave this to you?’ // ‘Martin. The owner.’ – a further example of the community’s support for Santiago. He is fed every night for free.

Page 14.

‘I must have water here for him, the boy thought, and soap and a good towel. Why am I so thoughtless?’ – Manolin reproaches himself for not realising one of Santiago’s basic needs. This underlines Santiago’s total dependence on the boy – a fact he hides from himself.

‘The great DiMaggio is himself again.’ – DiMaggio is Santiago’s hero, and Santiago is the boy’s hero. There is an ongoing theme of DiMaggio’s heroic overcoming of the pain of his ‘bone spur’ to be a great baseball player, which relates to Santiago’s overcoming his own age and sufferings as a fisherman later in the story.

Page 15.

‘When I was your age I was before the mast on a square-rigged ship that ran to Africa and I have sees lions on the beaches in the evening.’ – The memory of Africa and the lions is Santiago’s paradise – the wonderful, imagined place where he longs to be. It is associated with youthfulness (the lions are young cubs who play together), and the great strength and beauty of nature, which is seen in his dream without the bloody struggle of existence in which all creatures are caught up.

‘There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only you.’ – emphasising that Santiago is unique, extraordinary. Despite appearances, he is in fact the ultimate hero, the man who endures without glory, success, and despite his relative weakness and sufferings.