Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hemingway, Ernest (Vol. 13) - Ben Stoltzfus

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BEN STOLTZFUS

The themes that Hemingway weaves into The Old Man and the Sea, like counterpoint in a Bach fugue, explore the ideas of pride in killing and victory in conquest as opposed to humility in defeat and suffering in abnegation. Santiago is a pagan Catholic whose age, pride, honor, and courage force him to prove that pain is nothing to a man and that a fisherman can perform miracles. This Cuban protagonist of Spanish birth harpoons marlin like a matador and suffers pain like a Christ figure. Using Santiago as a symbolic namehead Hemingway fuses the themes into a moving experience of life and death. (p. 39)

C. N. Stavrou believes that in Hemingway's world human existence moves inexorably toward futility, vacancy, destruction, and waste; that the tug in the direction of death, nothingness, and despair is one of the most significant ingredients in his work. In The Sun Also Rises Jake characterizes Roman Catholicism as a "beautiful religion,"...

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1. Introduction
2. Malcolm Cowley
3. Robert W. Stallman
4. Sean O'Faolain
5. Philip Young
6. Scott Donaldson
7. Ben Stoltzfus
8. Copyright

1. Ernest Hemingway
2. American Literature