The Old Man and the Sea Summary / Study Guide

The Old Man and the Sea | Introduction

When The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952 to wide critical acclaim, it had been twelve years since Ernest Hemingway’s previous critical success, For Whom the Bell Tolls. His major writing effort during the intervening period, Across the River and Into the Trees, published in 1950, had been widely dismissed as a near-parody of the author’s usual style and themes. The Old Man and the Sea, however, was a popular success, selling 5.3 million copies within two days of its publication in a special edition of Life magazine. A few complaints about the stilted language of some of the Spanish transliterations came from critics. Some also found Santiago’s philosophizing unrealistic. Nevertheless, the story won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953. A year later, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Nobel committee singled out the story’s “natural admiration for every individual who fights the good fight in a world of reality overshadowed by violence and death,” (noted Susan F. Beegel in “Conclusion: The Critical Reputation of Ernest Hemingway”). Although Hemingway’s writing continued to be published, much of it posthumously after the author’s suicide in 1961, The Old Man and the Sea is generally considered by many to be his crowning achievement. The work was especially praised for its depiction of a new dimension to the typical Hemingway hero, less macho and more respectful of life. In Santiago, Hemingway had finally achieved a character who could face the human condition and survive without cynically dismissing it or dying while attempting to better it. In Santiago’s relationship with the world and those around him, Hemingway had discovered a way to proclaim the power of love in a wider and deeper way than in his previous works.

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