Deviations from Typical Style in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"

The final book of Ernest Hemingway’s writing career was the short novel The Old Man and The Sea. In it he tells the painfully simple story of an elderly man, Santiago, who is pulled out to sea while fighting to catch a huge marlin. It proved to his critics that he was still capable of writing a fully successful story after the critical letdown of his previous novels; however, this novel proved different from those that came before it. The realistic presentation of facts typical of Hemingway’s other works is nearly thrown out the window in this novel as things happen that should not be physically or humanly possible. The central character himself is a stark contrast to many of Hemingway’s other heroes of earlier novels, right down to the ending that Santiago eventually settles into by the conclusion of the novel. Hemingway wrote a number of well-known novels throughout his career, but he abandons many of his characteristic writing conventions in The Old Man and the Sea, and it proves to be very different in a multitude of manners from its predecessors, from the book’s realism-defying feats, to the exclusion of females, and with finally with Santiago’s journey and conclusion as the protagonist.

The first of many deviations in Hemingway’s novels, and maybe one of the most apparent, is his disparity when it comes to maintaining orderly realism and fact within the book. With stories that came before this one, Hemingway wanted to present the world as realistically as possible, with precise facts and nothing out of the ordinary that wouldn’t be possible in the real world. This trend in his writing comes to a stop in The Old Man and the Sea as there are times in which the possibility of what happens in the story becomes more of a fantasy, and times when Santiago himself becomes almost superhuman in his being. Simple facts as well are twisted in order for the novel to present its story in a more compelling way, the most obvious of these instances being when Santiago spots the genitalia of the marlin and declares that it is a male when in fact, Robert P. Weeks states in his essay, Fakery in The Old Man and the Sea, that “[The marlin’s] cojones are internal...sexes are not recognizable in these animals except by internal dissection,” (Weeks 36). That is not where Santiago’s seemingly supernatural abilities come to a close, or the first time they are apparent, as intuition becomes omnipotence when the marlin first tugs on Santiago’s line. A fish pulling from such far depths in the water without being visible should not be able to be defined or placed in its species; however, Santiago has little to no problem feeling the tug on his line and making the correct statement that it is a marlin that he is dealing with, and in response to this Weeks says, “This is not a fishing skill; it’s clairvoyance” (Weeks, 35). After this declaration, he spends the next three days being pulled out to sea by the marlin with barely any water or food to keep him sustained, and added to that he receives crippling wounds to his hands.

Despite all this he continues his fight against the fish up until the moment that he kills it. After this, Santiago begins his trek back home, which would at the least take three or more days to match the three days he spent being pulled out to see, and this does not even mention the physical energy he expended to fight off sharks; with still little food or water. Within Weeks’ essay he states that, “[Santiago’s] combat with the fish is an ordeal that would do in even a vigorous young man,” (Weeks, 36), and considering his age and the wear his body had sustained by this point in the novel, our protagonist becomes more superhuman than human. Santiago’s journey is one that no human of any condition should ordinarily be able to complete, not even a young man at the peak of his physical strength, yet this old man does so without much turmoil or consequence in the end, something which Hemingway must have questioned himself while writing the novel. The portrayal of the protagonist’s journey strays from the realistic, but still works in the story, and the departure from realism that Hemingway relies on does not betray the story but helps it along and provides a much different telling than what would have occured in a more realistic telling, one that was suggested in the short story The Old Man and The Sea was based upon. Weeks references how that character ended up in a more realistic telling of this story, as, “[w]eeping, half-demented, and sharks circled his boat,” (Weeks, 36), which is a far cry from how the protagonist of Hemingway’s novel ends up.

Another change to Hemingway’s typical writing habits is that his “code hero” is not entirely present in this novel. This is a protagonist who acts on honor and justice in a painful and chaotic world, and while Santiago may present a few qualities of Hemingway’s usual hero, he is a character unto himself. He is not a man ripe in his life but rather an elderly man, and not a stoic man despite his loneliness in life, as he constantly wishes for the boy’s presence throughout his journey. Throughout the book he does not receive the hero’s journey and development that most other Hemingway heroes’ go through, because Santiago begins the story as humble and driven by a deep moral compass. He begins the story as the code-hero and goes through everything with that state of being already, instead of having the story shape him into the code-hero like Hemingway’s other protagonists do. Within Arthur Waldhorn’s novel, A reader’s guide to Ernest Hemingway, this point is brought up and the critic writes that, “Santiago blends humility with pride. Humility is a commodity generally in short supply among Hemingway’s heroes,” (Waldhorn, 190).

In addition to the theme of the “code-hero” being twisted in this book, another popular theme of Hemingway’s is that of the “matador and the crucified,” which Melvin Backman in his critical essay, Hemingway: The Matador and the Crucified: “Two dominant motifs...The matador represents a great force held in check, releasing itself proudly in a controlled yet violent administering of death. The crucified stands for the taking of pain, even unto death, with all of one’s courage” (Backman, 245). These two motifs have always existed as two separate entities in Hemingway’s novel until The Old Man and The Sea, which upon describing Santiago Backman states, “In him we have the blending of...the matador and the crucified,” (Backman, 255). Within the novel, our protagonist faces off against the great marlin as a matador would face down a bull, with the two locked in combat for a vast majority of the novel. Yet through the fight our hero is lacerated and beaten, but he says to himself, “Pain does not matter to a man” (Backman, 257), and he engages all of this pain and torment, calling upon his courage and pride to see him through the combat. His suffering does not end after he defeats the marlin and becomes victorious as the matador, because shortly afterwards the marlin’s corpse is devoured by sharks despite Santiago’s struggles to protect it, leaving him with the carcass of his catch, and the bare bones of his victory, leaving him a crucified figure who fought until the end with all his strength.

Moving into the next topic, In the critical essay, Hemingway’s Men and (the Absence of) Women, by Leslie Fiedler, she states that Hemingway was “[o]nly comfortable when writing ‘men without women’...In his more ambitious fiction he does try to create female characters...These characters are never quite human” (Fiedler, 90). This was because of Hemingway’s obsession with masculinity and manhood, which was widely prevalent throughout his life and crippled a lot of his attempts to settle down in a family, as is said in the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “[h]is interest in exclusively masculine forms...became more pronounced...his first marriage broke up; in all he was married four times” (Levine, 796). This theme continued on into his books and several failed attempts at writings female characters into his stories. Each time, the female characters did not come off genuine and seemed out of place in his stories and writings. Fiedler writes that, “Yet [Hemingway] feels an obligation to introduce women into his more ambitious fictions, though he does not know what to do with them beyond taking them to bed,” and not only does the writing do disservice to the female gender, but the protagonists themselves do not treat women correctly either, “The hero’s whole attitude toward women is curious. It is either warlike or sentimental” (Fiedler, 93)

The theme of love and companionship takes on a different meaning in Hemingway’s last novel as he finally removes the presence of female characters entirely. This lets the novel soak in the masculinity he wished to capture, and to accomplish this The Old Man and the Sea instead gives us Manolo as Santiago’s companion, a young male. Carlos Baker states in the critical essay Hemingway’s Ancient Mariner that, “The love of Manolo for Santiago is that of a disciple for the master...it is also the love of a son for an adopted father,” (Baker, 163). This difference in relationship also lends towards Santiago’s strength in the book and throughout the story as he repeatedly tells himself, “I wish the boy was here,” and “I wish I had the boy,” which Carlos Baker examines as “[e]xactly what he says: the presence of the boy would be a help in a time of crises. But he is also invoking...the strength and courage of his youth” (Baker, 163). Having the boy in his life and watching him grow up from a child towards a capable adult, Santiago witnesses youth at its fullest, and through the boy, it becomes possible that the strength and confidence of his own youth is recaptured by Santiago’s imagination. Manolo replaces the typical female presence in Hemingway’s novels, but his presence has a more powerful impact on the story and the protagonist than any of Hemingway’s flat attempts at female characters did in his other works.

The conclusion of the story is where Santiago ends up deviating the most from his fellow literature heroes as the story ends with Santiago alive and well, victorious and content, and prepared to go out and face the day again. For a Hemingway protagonist to receive this manner of happy ending is uncommon across all his works. Arthur Waldhorn states in his novel, “It is not without relevance that Santiago returns alive from his dark voyager. Other heroes- Morgan, Jordan, Cantwell - had not” (Waldhorn, 198). This represents one of the starkest differences between Hemingway’s final novel and those that came before it, as Santiago reaches an ending that will grant him a full life, rather than ending it.  Unlike Harry from The Snows of Kilimanjaro who goes through the story miserable and ends up perishing in the end still miserable, Santiago fulfills something within himself that sparks a calm inside his soul. The marlin that had been the subject of his hunt had been caught, and even if the sharks had devoured it before he could bring it home Santiago had caught it, something more than any fisher he knew had been able to accomplish. In this process he proves to himself what he was capable of, reaching the peace that he so desired as he dreams about the lions on the beach, recapturing the youth he so desired. Unlike Harry and other protagonists from Hemingway’s earlier novels, Santiago and is inspired to go fishing again and to live another adventure.

Throughout The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway strays from his typical way of writing. There is less of a focus on making the novel as realistic as possible, relationships with women are replaced with a non-romantic central relationship, the typical hero’s journey is absent from the novel, and the protagonist is victorious and happy with his ending. Hemingway himself admitted that this final novel of his differs from those that came before it. Instead of being tragic and sullen, The Old Man and the Sea is hopeful, and it “is simple and written as simply as [Hemingway] could write it” (Waldhorn, 193). These deviations from Hemingway’s typical style and themes have been discussed extensively since the release of his novel, and could possibly be related to the major amount of success that the book received upon its release. The Old Man and the Sea delivers a simple story of a man fighting against his bad luck and achieving the victory and peace he has searched for for so long, surviving to live out the rest of his days while reliving the youth of his days through his young male companion. It is a simple story, but one that swims through adventure and captures the reader’s attention and imagination no matter how fantastical certain elements of it are. It is one of Hemingway’s most revered pieces because it pushes itself so far from the normal and tells a story that is inspiring and fulfilling.

Works cited

Backman, Melvin. “The Matador and the Crucified.” Hemingway and His Critics,

edited by Carlos Baker, The Colonial Press Inc., 1961, pp. 245-257.

Baker, Carlos. “Hemingway’s Ancient Mariner.” Ernest Hemingway: Critique of Four Major Novels, edited by Martin Steinmann, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962, pp. 163.

Fiedler, Leslie. “Hemingway’s Men and (the absence of) Women.” Readings on Ernest Hemingway, edited by Leone, Barbour, Szumski, De Koster, David Bender, 1997, pp. 90-93.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. Scribner, 1952.

Levine, Robert S., editor. “Ernest Hemingway.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. D, W. W. Norton & Company, 2017, p. 796.

“The Old Man and the Sea.” A Reader's Guide to Ernest Hemingway, by Arthur Waldhorn, Octagon Books, 1990, pp. 190–198.

Weeks, Robert. “Fakery in The Old Man and the Sea.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Old Man and the Sea, edited by Katherine t. Jobes, Prentice-Hall International, Inc. 1968, pp. 35-36.