Plot Summary

In a small fishing village in Cuba, Santiago, an old, weathered fisherman has just gone 84 days without catching a fish. On the 85th day, he is determined to catch a big, impressive fish.

For years, Santiago has been fishing with a young boy named Manolin. Manolin started fishing with the old man when he was only 5 years old. Santiago is like Manolin's second father, and has taught the young boy everything about fishing. Manolin is extremely loyal to Santiago and makes sure that the old man is always safe, fed and healthy. Manolin's parents, however, force the boy to leave Santiago and fish on a more lucrative fishing boat.

Manolin does not want to leave Santiago, but must honor his duty to his

parents. On the new boat, Manolin catches several fish within the first few days. Santiago, meanwhile, decides to head out on the Gulf Stream alone. He feels the 85th day will be lucky for him. He sets out on his old, rickety skiff. Alone on the water, Santiago sets up his fishing lines with the utmost precision, a skill that other fisherman lack.

Finally, he feels something heavy tugging at one of his lines. A huge Marlin has found Santiago's bait and this sets off a very long struggle between the two. The Marlin is so huge that it drags Santiago beyond all other boats and people - he can no longer see land from where the fish drags him. The struggle takes its toll on Santiago. His hands become badly cramped and he is cut and bruised from the force of the fish.

Santiago and the Marlin become united out at sea. They are attached to each other physically, and in Santiago's case, emotionally. He respects and loves the Marlin and admires its beauty and greatness. He sees the fish as his

brother. Despite this, Santiago has to kill it. He feels guilty killing a brother, but after an intense struggle in which the fish drags the skiff around in circles, Santiago harpoons the very large fish and hangs it on the side of his boat. He feels brave, like his hero Joe DiMaggio, who accomplished great feats despite obstacles, injuries or adversities.

After enjoying a few moments of pride, a pack of sharks detects the blood in the water and follow the trail to Santiago's skiff. Santiago has to fend off each shark that goes after his prized catch. Each shark takes a huge bite out of the Marlin, but the old man fends them off, himself now bruised, but alive. He sails back to shore with the carcass of his Marlin. He is barely able to walk and slowly staggers back to his hut, where he falls into bed.

The next morning, the boy finds his mentor and cries when he looks at

Santiago's bruised hands. He promises he will reject his parents' wishes and vows to fish with Santiago again.

 

第二篇：分析老人与海 英文

Grace under pressure

——An Analysis of The Old Man and the Sea

Abstract: Hemingway, a famous modern novelist of America, once said “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” It is his positive attitude to life that endows the novel’ s protagonist — Santiago with the character of courage, confidence, dignity and never giving up. He is still strong and unyielding and goes forward in the face of the strike of tremendous pressrue and misfortune from the external world. Santiago maintains dignity and courage with a grace of winner though eventually he fails. This essay also deals with the problem of “grace under pressure” and its revelation to people.

Key words: The Old Man and the Sea; confidence; never giving up; grace under pressure.

压力下的风度

——分析《老人与海》

摘 要：美国现代著名小说家海明威曾经说过：“一个人并不是生来要被打败的。人能够被毁灭，但是不能够被打败。”正是这种积极的人生态度赋予了他笔下的桑提亚哥勇敢、自信、自尊和永不屈服的性格特征。他在外界巨大的压力和厄运打击时，仍然坚强不屈，勇往直前。尽管失败了，桑提亚哥却保持了人的尊严和勇气，有着胜利者的风度。本文从此角度出发，探索了“压力下的风度”这一主题以及给人们带来的启示。

关键词：《老人与海》；自信；永不屈服；压力下的风度

1. Introduction:

1.1 About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is American novelist and short-story writer and one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

The son of a country doctor, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star after graduating from high school in 1917. During World War I he served as an ambulance driver in France and in the Italian infantry and was wounded just before his 19th birthday. Later, he worked in Paris as a correspondent for the Toronto Star. During the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway served as a correspondent on the loyalist side. He fought in World War II and then settled in Cuba in 1945. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Old Man and the Sea. He was increasingly plagued by illness and mental problems. And he committed suicide by shooting himself in July, 1961.

Hemingway's fiction usually focuses on people living essential, dangerous lives, soldiers, fishermen, athletes, bullfighters who meet the pain and difficulty of their existence with stoic courage. His celebrated literary style, influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, is direct, terse,

and often monotonous, yet particularly suited to his elemental subject matter. His famous works mainly include The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), The Old Man and the Sea (1952), and so on.

1.2 A summary of The Old Man and the Sea

In 1952, Hemingway published a novella, The Old Man and the Sea. An old fisherman, Santiago, had not been catching any fish for 84 days. At first, a boy named Manolin was together with him, but then the boy was arranged to another ship by his parents because they believed their child would not have a good luck with the old man. Then on the 85th day, Santiago set out far enough and caught a big marlin unexpectedly which was larger than his ship. However, the injured fish left a fishy smell in the sea which attracted numerous sharks. The old man struggled with sharks fiercely. When he returned to the harbour, the marlin had only a huge skeleton. But

Manolin believed that Santiago was not defeated. On that afternoon, Santiago slept and dreamed that he became a lion. And the boy was ready to set out with Santiago again because he had to learn all the skills of Santiago, which symbolized that the spirit of “never giving up” will be passed on from generation to generation. 1.3 The writing background of The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is based on the truth. After World War II, Hemingway moved to Cuba and knew an old fisherman Gregorio Fuentes. In 1930, Fuentes rescued Hemingway from a heavy storm. Since then, Hemingway and Fuentes became friends and they often went to fish. In 1936, Fuentes caught a big fish. He had to drag the fish for a long time because it was too big. But what left only was a skeleten because of the attack of sharks when he reached the seashore. Hemingway was shocked by this affair. Shortly after Christmas in 1950, Hemingway began to write a draft of The Old Man and the Sea. In April of 1951, Hemingway showed the draft to his friends who went to Cuba to visit him and everyone admired it. Hemingway also thinks that it is the best work in his life.

2. An Analysis of the Protagonist — Santiago

2.1 The three layers of pressure

The success of The old man and the sea lies most in its perfect display — the grace under pressure, which is a very important quality of Santiago. The quality is composed of two dements: pressure and grace. Pressure is the premise and only under pressure can one’s graceful demeanor displays.

At the beginning of the novel, Santiago had been away for eighty-four days without catching a fish and had become the laughingstock of his small village. This is an affront to a masterful fisherman and it forms the first layer of pressure; As the story begins, a young boy, Manolin, stayed with the old man. But after the fortieth luckless day, the boy’ s father told his son to go to another boat, leaving the skiff of which the sail was patched with four sacks and furled like the flag of permanent defeat. When he left the old man and fished with another, the boy caught three good fish in the first week. The boy’ s good luck formed obvious contrast with the old man’ s bad luck. If this happened to another boy, it was coincidental. But it happened to the boy who had got nothing with the old man for forty days and exactly when he left the old man for one week. This made other fishermen believed that the old man was really unlucky enough. This is the second layer of pressure; When the old man hooked the biggest marlin which was never seen in the Gulf Stream without the benefit of modem technology, he was alone. He endured a long and grueling

struggle with the marlin and felt lonely and helpless. This is the third layer of pressure.

2.2 Santiago’ s grace under the three layers of pressure

2.2.1 Grace under the first layer of pressure

As the novel begins, we find Santiago definitely and finally failed. However, he kept self-composed and had confidence in his dignity. So even having got nothing in the first 84 days, he continued to go out to fish. Santiago’ s commitment to sailing out further than any fisherman had testified his confidence to the depth. It also showed his confidence to change his bad luck because he clearly knew what he was born for. Yes, he was born for conquering of the sea. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. We all know that eyes are the windows of one’ s soul. It means the old man’ s heart or soul is inconvincible. In order to protect his dignity, he finally summarized the famous motto“ Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated”.

This is obviously the declaration to the difficuhies and adversities. How spirited and valiant the pledge! It encourages human to fight for dignity.

2.2.2 Grace under the second layer of pressure

The old man was in his adversity and the boy had got good fish after he left the old man. Santiago didn’ t feel jealous but happy for him. When talking with the boy who was not willing to leave, the old man said, “I know you did not leave me because you doubted’’, and he felt it was quite normal though he would be lonely without the boy. When the boy asked if he could offer the old man a beer on the terrace and then took the stuff home, the old man said, “ why not between fishermen”.

All these details show that Santiago was reasonable, sensible and kind with open mind. The old man’ s grace lies in his gender feeling. Let’ s take a look at how the old man woke the boy: he took hold of one foot gently and held it until the boy woke up. When the boy was still sleepy, the old man put his arm across his shoulders and said “I am sorry”.

With confident attitude towards life, the old man took things philosophically. In fact, he hoped the boy could come back to him and he needed the boy, but when the boy wanted to be back, the old man refused because it was the boy’ s parents who made him leave and thought he made the boy awkward and unlucky with him.

2.2.3 Grace under the third layer of pressure

When fighting with the marlin, he was driven through the two opposite forces between certainty and uncertainty. Sometimes Santiago felt lonely and helpless, but he conquered all of them ultimately, which was best presented in his long monologue and recall about arm—wrestling contest, such as “1 wish I had the boy to help me and to see this”, “I wish the boy were here” and “1 wish I had the boy”(Chapter 39). His mention of the boy several times proved that he wanted to overwhelm loneliness and enhance courage and force to fight.

Santiago recalled the arm—wrestling episode to give him more confidence. The recall would allow him to forget a connection with the marlin that went beyond the literal link of the line. His bodily aches attested to the fact that he is well matched and the fish was a worthy opponent. As a young man, Santiago enjoyed single-minded competitive contests and as an old man, he continued to enjoy them.

3. Conclusion

The old man conveys us that we human beings should keep graceful even under fierce

pressure. We should face the failures bravely, and keep the spirit of unyielding integrity. These are the qualities with which we should be equipped, just as the motto of the old man “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’’

Bibliography:

1、 Brenner Gerry, The Old Man and Sea：story of a common man, Twayne publishers, 1991。

2、 桂扬清，吴翔林著，《英美文学选读》，中国对外翻译出版社，2001。

3、 海明威著，吴钧译，《老人与海》，上海外文出版社，2000。

4、 张玉斌著，《一生必读的60本书》，北京工业大学出版社，2003。