The meaning of the work as a whole

My final thoughts on Ernest Hemingway's novel The Old Man and The Sea are just this:

• Although the simple text provides an easy read, it is still enjoyable.
• Contradicting my last statement once you find out there is deeper meaning to the text it becomes even better.
• My past blog post about the book not being of AP merit has shifted a little bit more to the side of yes, because of the deeper meanings that I had not noticed before.
• I recommend this book to people who do not have the time to read a long book.

I think the largest takeaways that I got from the book was about the main character Santiago and his complex relationship with the ocean. This was the part I focused on the most because of all the irony that went along with it. He has such a hard time getting money due to the inability to catch fish yet he needs the ocean to be able to get all of it. It is a sort of love hate relationship that he has going on with the ocean.

When people read this book I suggest that they take it slow and try and break down the book piece by piece. Since there are no chapters this may be challenging to do. Due to the book not being very long you are able to focus more on smaller parts.

I think that this book is really just about how in life there are going to be a lot of downs, but you have to keep trying until you get that one positive, and it will feel so good because of how much effort you have put into it.

Style of this book

Hemingway's style in this book is simple yet uses a bounty of literary elements. As I talked about in my prior posts, he utilizes imagery and sensory details to pull in readers. His syntax is also very simple, sentences are often a good length with almost no complexity to them at all.

This simplicity allowed me to think about the book all together and not have to break it down piece by piece. His tone tends to go up and down with the good and bad that happens to our main character Santiago. An example of this being when Santiago caught the huge Marlin only to have it eaten.

The only problem with the simple style that Hemingway uses is that readers, such as myself, can often read something and not see any deeper meaning to it. This problem happened to me plenty of times as I read the book, and made me go back and really think about what was happening and what it meant to the characters and the readers.

I enjoyed the book and its simple story of the relation ship between an old man and the ocean. It was a book that I would recommend as a personal read and not as a school assignment.

I can not recommend this as an AP book

As far as I have read I can not in the right mind say that this book could be used for an AP course or test. The book itself could be simply compared to an advanced children's book. Now I in no way am bashing on Ernest Hemingway as a person or Author, and he may well have been going for a more simpler approach with this book, and try to reach more audiences.

The book really has not offered many chances for deeper insight as it is a more simple book. I have in a few circumstances been able to think deeper about certain parts of the book, like when the old man Santiago is fishing for the large Marlin, that may have been one of the few times I was actually able to think about deeper meanings.

The book is still enjoyable even with its lack of complexity, the imagery and sensory details can make it a fun read, but definitely not one to be used for an assignment.

An endless battle

Santiago the old man defies the odds in this area of the book, not only does the old man go out again on his own to catch a fish, but this time has a three day battle with one of them.

Ernest Hemingway develops the character Santiago very well during this section of the book. By giving the old man a journey by himself the reader is able to see how strong the old man really can be. Santiago at the beginning of the book was looked at as a sad old man that could no longer accomplish the job he wanted/needed to do, now in this section we see his character show what it is truly about.

Santiagos' battle with this huge Marlin shows that his character is resilient, and will not back down without a fight. Anyone in todays world i'm sure could not withstand a battle with a fish for three days, let alone want the fish that bad that they stay to do so. This says a lot about Santiago as he wants the fish that bad that he is willing to go as long as it takes to get it.

The heartless end to that story being that the other animals of the world decide that the Marlin is theirs and choose to eat it from the side of his skiff.

The first thirty-nine pages of The Old Man and the Sea By Ernest Hemingway shows a interesting relationship between an old man named Santiago and a young boy named Manolin. They two seem to have a great relationship despite the fact that the young boy no longer fishes with the old man. Granted, the parents of the young boy wanted him to work on a successful boat, and the old man had not caught a fish in 84 days.

The two connect with more than just fish, they are often heard speaking about the game of baseball, an entire paragraph is devoted to the discussion of the American Baseball teams and how they will preform. The back and forth banter seems almost pointless, but also gives off the idea that this is something they both value so much and care about.

This part of the book shows an amazing amount of imagery that truly brought me in, it captures the true setting in a fisherman's world, and allows the reader to see this too. There is also good description when it comes to smell, on page 2 the smell of shark is described, "When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory." I can smell this myself because it connects me to my past experiences.

I am excited to read the rest of the book.