The Book Review

As we know, The Old Man and the Sea  revolves around an elderly Cuban fisherman -Santiago battling a giant marlin far offshore in the Gulf Stream.  Some people think that the old man in the book only captured an empty skeleton and didn't gain anything of value. I think the view is superficial and I disagree with it.

Firstly,  the old man saw real and magnificent nature  during catching fishes. For example, there are some sentences--"he could now see no more of the green of the shore, but only the snowy peaks of the green hills, and the clouds that rose above them like lofty snow-mountains." He went to the distant sea field which fishermen seldom went forward to. The scenery that he saw was unique and gave him unique feelings. In addition, w hen I read the book, I find the old man consider the sea as a kind and beautiful woman and regarded birds and fishes as his friends. He could even chat with them about his situation.  From these plots, I know he learned to deal with his loneliness and accompany himself with nature.

Secondly, I know that there are many symbolic things in the book. For example, the sea symbolizes the real tough guy--it can tolerate everything although it usually is mild. Then The big marlin symbolizes ideal target and ambition. The sharks are symbols of evils.  So the old man brought back the empty skeleton of marlin, which means he defeated the giant marlin. But as a fisherman, he only got a skeleton in the eighty-fifth day to catch fish, which is undoubtedly a bad result. But I think although the end is tragic , the old man  could calmly accept failure and bravely facing death happening possibly , which seemed to be his the other success. During the struggling with sharks, he took advantage of tools he could use to fight against with sharks   to protect his big marlin. Although his hand hurt badly and he was very tired because of sharks ’  chases, he never give up to fight for his ambition. I realize this is the "tough man spirit" . In the novel, there is a sentence that "A person is not born to be defeated. You can destroy him, but you can't beat him"  is is a high generalization of the "tough man spirit".  In other words, that is human beings do not bow to fate, never give in, which shows the spirit of a fighter and optimistic attitude towards life. So Santiago had more strong spirit by the traveling, which supported him to fight for his ideal life.

At the same time, people there were surprised to the big skeleton because they had never seen such a big fish. When they knew it was Santiago that caught it, they admired him very much. The little boy cared for him carefully all the time and he considered the old man as a hero. From these plots, I know the old man won the respect and admiration of people. What ’ s more, he expressed his strength and optimism to the little boy and the   "tough m a n   spirit" will motivate more people to be brave and positive when they suffer from setbacks.

Therefore, I think the old man gained many valuable things. He saw unique scenery and learned to deal with loneliness. He won the admiration of the people. He had the the "tough  man  spirit"  to support himself and motivate many people. All of those were very valuable.

2022-11-25

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