"The Old Man and the Sea" as an Allegory of Man's Struggle in Life

Literally The Old Man and the Sea is a story of an old fisherman's single-handed fight with a huge fight in the Gulf Stream north of Havana, but it has various allegorical interpretations. First it may be regarded as a Christian allegory. It has also been treated as an allegory of an artist's struggle with his material. But the story may be seen as an epic metaphor for life. Human life is here depicted as a struggle against the unconquerable forces of the world, in which a kind of victory is nevertheless possible. Hemingway portrays here Santiago, a simple old fisherman who is capable of an extraordinary dignity and heroism by means of which he wins a moral victory, even though he faces a heartbreaking defeat.

The Old Man and the Sea as an Allegory of Man's Struggle in Life

Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman who has gone eighty- four days without catching a fish, at last hooks an eighteen-foot Marlin, the largest he has ever known. The fish is too powerful for Santiago, who now fishes alone having lost the help of the boy, Manolin, who used to sail with him. For forty eight hours the old man holds on while he is towed farther out to sea. Finally he brings the fish alongside, harpoons it, and lashes the dead body to his skiff. Shortly afterwards the sharks begin to attack the dead Marlin. He kills several of them but more appear. He is eventually left only with a broken tiller to fight with. The fight is an unequal one. The sharks eat away all the flesh of the Marlin, leaving only the skeleton which the old man tows home, half dead with exhaustion. On reaching the shore, he goes to his humble shack, falls asleep, and dreams of other days.

Santiago is Hemingway's code hero who illustrates the values of life that the latter cherished all his life- courage, dignity, honour, dedication, endurance, etc. A man may grow old and be wholly down on his luck, but he can still dare, persist when he is defeated or thwarted, and thus by the manner of his losing wins a victory. All this is applicable to life as a whole, to man’s earthly existence. Santiago demonstrates the necessity and the reality of heroism in his everyday work.

Santigo' s killing of the Marlin Symbolizes man's attainment of his goal and his lacerated hands symbolize the rebuffs that a man suffers in the course of his efforts to attain his ambition, while the prolonged resistance of the Marlin shows that gaining a high objective is no easy task. The sharks symbolize all those forces which take away from a man the fruits of his hard labour. But the old man does not lose hope for the future and still dreams about the lions.

Thus The Old Man and the Sea is an allegory of man's life on earth, his heroic struggle and defeat. Santiago is a Christ -figure who undergoes pain and suffering, and like Christ he suffers a kind of martyrdom.