The Old Man and the Sea blog 6

From the day it was published, The Old Man and the Sea has been a topic of much debate in the literary world.  Many critics believe it to be a great classic which it is remembers as today, while others thought that Hemmingway had lost his talent to write. “ While some critics have praised The Old Man and the Sea as a new classic that takes its place among such established American works as William Faulkner’s short story “The Bear” and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, others have attacked the story as “imitation Hemingway” and find fault with the author’s departure from the uncompromising realism with which he made his name.” (Sparknotes 1).  After all these years we still read The Old Man and the Sea because it was written by one of America’s most famous authors.  Hemmingway had gained much popularity during his career of writing, and he even won the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for this novel.  Besides being written by Ernest Hemmingway, we still read The Old Man and the Sea because it has an important underlying message.  This message of pride and perseverance through challenges that seem to reap no rewards has remained a popular theme in modern literature.  What makes this book unique is that Ernest Hemmingway’s writing style captures the imagination of the reader and holds them in through his short purposeful sentences and vivid imagery.  We still read this book because it is so well written and like every other classic, it has layers upon layers to peel away.  These layers include all the themes, imagery, motifs, and every other literary device that Hemmingway has included in this book.  Another fact that makes a book a classic, is the ability to be reread multiple times and still find something new that had been previously overlooked.  This is definitely true for The Old Man and the Sea.  From reading this book, we can learn that honor can be gained even in the face of defeat, just like Santiago’s struggle against the fish and his loss against the sharks.

"The Old Man and the Sea." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 21 July 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldman/>.