Hemingway Views On World In The Old Man And The Sea

When readers hear “old man” they usually think of the term literally and picture a man with worn skin and powder-white hair. However, according to the Dictionary of Symbols, “old man” can also symbolize “the age-old wisdom of humanity” (Cirlot 243). This means the understanding of mankind and its actions. The dictionary also mentions that “man” can also represent the different parts of the universe and “each part of the body relates to a corresponding part of the universe.” For example, the head might represent the heavens or the sky, the breath may stand for the atmosphere, the stomach might represent the oceans, and finally, the lower half of the body could portray the earth (Cirlot 197). Therefore, the term “old man” does not necessarily always be written literally, the term may represent the understanding and knowledge of everything in the world or it may also symbolize a person who provides insight and wisdom to others.

Joe Dimaggio is an Italian baseball player who played for the Yankees. He was raised in the San Francisco area with his many siblings, which included four sisters and four brothers. He began playing baseball at a young age and was “elected to play minor league baseball with the San Francisco Seals” (“Joe Dimaggio”) at age seventeen. He later moved on to play major league baseball for the Yankees until retiring at thirty-five because the game was not fun for him anymore. He was unique because he had many injuries throughout his career, one of which was a bone spur in his heel during the 1949 season. Due to this, he was unable to play for the first two months of the season. However, when he returned, he played just as well as he did before he got hurt. He maintained a “56-game hitting streak” in the 1941 season and is still considered one of the best baseball players to this day (“Joe Dimaggio”)

The Pulitzer Prizes are one of the most prestigious prizes for music, art, journalism, and other literature given in America. The Pulitzer Prize is only available to U.S. citizens and the “luncheon” in which the awards are presented, happens at the University of Columbia in New York. The idea of the Pulitzer Prize first originated in the Josef Pulitzer’s will in 1904 and after much thought, the prizes were finally founded in 1917. The Pulitzer Prize was modified in 1997, during the 150th anniversary of Pulitzer’s birth, to coordinate to the more modern times, so more categories of prizes were added: modern music and online journaling. After many years, some critics began to protest about which works deserved or didn’t deserve the prize and the Pulitzer Prizes were forced to make their decisions more confidentially. After the controversy, the Pulitzer Prize has “stood firmly by a policy of secrecy” and has since refused to publicly discuss their decisions on the winners of the Pulitzer Prize (Topping).

There are many prizes in the literature category and the Pulitzer Prize website states that there are no set criteria that the board will judge the nominated pieces on, however, the pieces are required to have been created during the current year and be available to the public, preferably have already been published. The only certain rule that the nominees will be judged on is that the nominated piece is required “to gain a majority vote of the Pulitzer Prize Board” (Topping) or else the prize will not be given. Additionally, the prize is given to the most admirable literature so the piece must also have a clear style, original ideas, and easy-to-follow presentation. If a piece is not nominated, the judges can choose to switch nominations or make a new nomination by earning a three-fourths vote for the piece.

The Cold War was a war between America and the Soviet Union about communism that began at the end of World War II and ended in the 1990s. After America attempted to eliminate communism, the Soviet Union saw them as a threat and both countries began to create new weapons such as: “intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers.” The Cold War started when the Soviet Union, America, and Great Britain began to fall apart due to mistrust and misunderstandings (Snead). The mistrust was put on hold when Germany violated the nonaggression pact by attacking the Soviet Union. America, although not formally participating in the war, but its differences with the Soviet Union aside, and aligned with them to defeat the common enemy: “the seemingly unstoppable Nazi machine” While the alliance during this time lessened the tension between the two countries, the feeling of mistrust did not go away and after 1945, when the Nazis were defeated, the two returned to the previous state of “mistrust, and differing views”(Snead).

The Cold War occurred in what many people call the “post-war years.” The war ended in the 1980s when “the United States became more assertive,” and “the Soviet Union entered a period of decline”(Snead). During this time, both parties began to realize that the war was causing more problems than it was fixing, and was, in fact, costing more money than either side could afford at the time. Soon, the United States and the Soviet Union began to try to improve their relationship with each other. However, many still consider the United States as the “winners” of the war because, towards the end of the war, the Berlin Wall fell after a string of uprisings in the nearby countries. Today, the Cold War has been made into many films, and even a couple of Hollywood movies, and there are still numerous people interested in the “social and cultural superiority” of the Cold War (“The Thaw”).

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer who was born in 1899 and passed away in 1961. He is considered one of the most talented and respected authors even today and he wrote many books that have gained attention throughout the nation. He lived a sad life during his younger years, where his father committed suicide, and he felt as if he could not talk to anyone about his problems at the time, not even his own mother. However, he coped with his grief by writing (Anderson 25). When Hemingway was just a teenager he was enlisted and had to fight in World War I. Instead of looking at this as a sad event, Hemingway looked at this as a time to experience an adventure. The author states: “This was the kind of action with heroes and villains that Ernest had only read about” (Anderson 28). Hemingway had been writing for almost his entire life until the treatment meant to help him with his depression and mood swings caused his inability to write even just one sentence (Anderson 43). The last book that he wrote was The Old Man and the Sea, and this novel allowed Ernest Hemingway to be nominated for and chosen to receive, a Pulitzer Prize (Topping).

Ernest Hemmingway views the world realistically. He believes that endurance is the best policy, as is shown during World War I when “[d]espite his serious wounds, Ernest threw one of the injured soldiers across his back and carried him to a first aid station” (Anderson 29). He valued calmness and staying strong through tough times, which was part of his motto: “’fraid a nothin” (Anderson 27). He followed this motto throughout his life, and when difficulties were thrown at him, he persevered. This is seen when Hemingway begins to take boxing lessons. On his first day of training, he is put against the gym’s highest-ranking boxer in his weight class. Although he lost the match and went home with a broken nose, he continued to go to the gym the next day and was prepared for however his coach might test him (Anderson 27). Hemingway lived by his motto through all the difficulties thrown at him throughout his life and he did his best to adhere to that belief until he shot himself in the head with a shotgun in the “early morning of July 2, 1961” (Anderson 43).