Old Man and the Sea 5

The Old Man and the Sea is a fairly good representation of the time period. It never really says the exact time the story is set during, but you can make a good guess from culture references, interactions, and issues. A few times Santiago brings up the baseball player Joe DiMaggio, and his job is to fish. Santiago goes out on a tiny boat, and for over eighty days he has not even caught anything. To make a good living these days fishing you would most likely have to go out on a large vessel with many people and bring in a large amount of fish. It is clear that fishing is a very important part of Santiago’s life and probably many others of the time, especially in consideration of the location. They are living in Cuba, which is an island in the Gulf of Mexico. Being right in a body of water provides a good reason to go into the fishing trade too. This novel shows a good reflection of the time period, but remains important to other times that will come.
This story symbolizes the struggle of a man against nature. This man has the skill to catch the fish, but he is not lucky enough to get it home. As the old proverb says “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Santiago is like the broken clock, but he is only right once every eighty seven days. There is another quote by Stanislaw J. Lec that says “If a man who cannot count finds a four leaf clover, is he lucky?” Santiago is like the man who cannot count, and the fish is the four leaf clover. Santiago finds the fish, but he is not lucky. That is why the fish is taken from him.
There is a lot of thematic significance to this story too. Henry David Thoreau once said “many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” I think this quote relates well to the novel because Santiago does not care that he did not keep the fish. He cares that he fought a worthy adversary and won. He is a man who takes pride in achievements like this.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.