【英语论文】《老人与海》中的多重主题_MULTIPLE THEMES ON THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.doc

外国语学院学生毕业论文 题 目multiple themes on the old man and the sea 老人与海中的多重主题 abstractthe old man and the sea, ernest hemingways last major work, is regarded as the most important work of hemingways writing principle and classical one for its literary value. the novel can be read on more than one level of meaning, which contributes to the success of the novel. it is an exciting but tragic adventure story. the application of symbolism decides the creation of the characters in the novel. hemingway describes a vivid image of the tough man, santiago, who has the unconquerable spirit of man. it also expounds the attitude of the authors and the writing. thus, this paper intends to find out the hidden value behind the literal version by studying multiple themes in the novel. the readers can comprehend the preferable novel and excavate the inner world and feelings of hemingway.key words: adventure, unconquerable spirit, religious significance, attitude摘 要老人与海是美国作家欧内斯特海明威后期的一部重要作品。这部作品充分体现了作者的创作原则，成为一部在世界文学史上有着重要价值而为人们珍视的经典著作。这篇小说蕴含着不止一层意义，这也是促成这部小说成功的关键。这是一个激动人心的带有悲剧性的冒险故事。故事通过象征手法的运用，决定着小说人物个性的创造。海明威描述了一个硬汉的形象，桑地亚哥，他具有不可征服的精神力量。老人与海还阐明了海明威对作家和写作的看法。因此，本文欲意通过对小说多重主题的研究，来发现在原视角背后的隐藏价值，使读者们可以更好的理解作品的完美无缺和挖掘海明威的内心世界和感受。关键词：冒险；不可战胜的精神力量；宗教意义；态度multiple themes on the old man and the sea. introductionernest miller hemingway was born in oak park, near chicago, on july 21, 1899. he was one of the greatest writers in america. the old man and the sea is hemingways last major work. it won the years pulitzer prize and directly led ernest hemingway to be the nobel prize laureate in 1954. it is one of the most influenced and far-reaching novels of the literary treasure of the world. the impact of the novel on the readers is powerful and impressive. “those who saw him personally thanked him and often burst into tears.”(carlos baker 1969:529) sunday times hailed the novel as “the best short story hemingway has writtenno page of this beautiful master-work could have been done better or differently.” (carlos baker 1969:514) over the past 50 years, this heroic novel has encouraged and touched several generations. why is it so excellent and successful? surely multiple themes may contribute to the success of the novel. . multiple themesthe old man and the sea may completely become one of the true classical of this generation. of course, the same qualities of this short story are those that the readers associate with many great stories of the past: near perfection of form within the limitations of its subject matter; restraint of treatment; regard for the unities of time and place; and evocative simplicity of style. however, the old man and the sea can be read on more than one level of meaning. we can see following four aspects about it in the process of multiple themes statement.1.the exciting but tragic adventure storyit is obviously an exciting but tragic adventure story. santiago, an old cuban fisherman rows his skiff into the gulf stream and gets no fish for eighty-four luckless days, but he never loses hope and confidence. sustained by the pride of his career, the only pride he has left, the broken old fisherman hooks a huge marlin never seen in those waters. then alone and exhausted by his struggle to harpoon the giant fish, he is forced into a losing battle with marauding sharks when he is ready to take the marlin back. as a result, those sharks leave him nothing but the skeleton of his catch. at the same time, for santiago, the sea is objectionable place for exploitation as the battlefield. that is to say, the novel may be regarded as three vital scenes to express the exciting but tragic adventure, which is perfectly mingled in his fighting against the marlin, the sharks and the sea.1.1 the fighting with the marlinafter eighty-four days without a fish, he sails out of the harbor for fishing again on the eighty-fifth day. he thinks, “every day is a new day.”(hemingway 1993:25), every day will bring new hope. luckily, he hooks a huge marlin two feet longer than his skiff. but the fight begins between the old man and his rival, the great fish. for two days, the fish tortures the old man as it swims out to sea and tries to make its escape. it makes surge to pull the old man down on his face and the blood runs down his check. his hands are cut with leaving him terrible pain. the lonely fisherman is in great danger. he would drop into the sea in any time and die without any hope. he could get rid of his trouble at once if only by cutting the line and letting the fish go. however, he is a brave and courageous man. he does not want to give up the nice chance. the only thought is in his mind “fish, ill stay with you until i am dead” (hemingway 1993:43). when he felt too tired, he slept a bit and dreamed his lions on the beach; when he felt hungry, he ate some tuna. when having a cramp in the hands, he clenched his teeth and rubbed it against the trousers and tried to gentle his fingers. he believed that a man could be destroyed but not defeat. after the extremely hard and bitter struggle with the marlin for two days and nights, at last he succeeded in killing the great marlin and fastening it to his skiff. he won the victory and felt comfortable very much.1.2 the fighting with the sharksthe old man is in the good mood and sails southwest for his home. but the broken old man is not allowed to return peacefully. if this has happened santiago would not have been so heroic and respectable. in his returning trip, the more dangerous and terrible disaster exists. the schools of sharks come to attack the marlin of the old man. the sharks like the blood very much and are so extraordinary that they are fish “built to feed on all the fishes in the sea, that were so fast and strong and well armed that they had no other enemy” (hemingway 1993:86). the old man has no feat at all and prepares for the fight, though the sharks are so powerful and fearful that he could not escape his defeat like the marlin. another heart-stirring fight begins between the old man and the sharks.first of all, he succeeds in killing a dentuso shark, but the dead shark makes him lose the harpoon and all the ropes besides forty pounds of his marlin. he knows that the fish is bleeding and more sharks would follow to take his victory and a very bad time is coming. without harpoons and all the ropes, he has to lash his knife to the butt of one of the oars as a weapon. as he has expected, two galanos sharks come with the scent and are killed. unfortunately, when he kills them, the knife blade snapped. it is getting dark now. again, many sharks head straight for the skiff swimming side by side. again, the old man defeats the sharks. but by midnight, the sharks come in a pack. at this moment, the old mans mind is clearer than ever. still he never stops the fighting because stopping fighting means that he is towards dead. how could he accept defeat! “but man is not made for defeat. a man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (hemingway 1993:89) it is pitching dark. he has no weapons. he jerked the tiller free from the rudder and beat and chopped with it, holding it down again and againfinally, he saw one shark came against the head of his fish, and he knew all was over. he swung the tiller across the sharks head where the jaws were caught in the heaviness of the fishs head that would not tear. he swung it once and twice and again. he heard the tiller break and he lunged at the shark with the splintered butt. he felt it go in and knowing it was sharp he drove it in again. the shark let go and rolled away. that was last shark of the pack that came. there was nothing more for them to eat. (hemingway 1993:102-103)1.3 the fighting with the seahemingways own concept of the sea is given to the readers through santiago, the main character. for santiago, the sea is a fearful place for exploitation. despite santiagos attraction to the sea, he recognizes its cruelty. he wonders:“why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? she is kind and very beautiful. but she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea” (hemingway 1993:23).as a feminine figure, the sea is fickle. it embodies both kindness and cruelty. the sea is beautiful and dangerous. it contains in itself many elements of fertility that many myths about woman demonstrate. the sea contains many of the creatures man needs for food. it hides in its depth all kind of secrets as the great fish that santiago eventually met. the sea “is as thrilling to behold as a lovely woman. it exalts man and calls him out to novel quests. but is also entraps man, luring him out only to ruin him.”(sheldon n.grebstein 1924:23) santiago has identified the sea as a creature of caprice. it “is a changeling thing; it may be loved, but love for it must be tempered with knowledge, caution, and respect.”(sam bluefarb 1959:506) santiago is set against an ancient backdrop, the sea. his gallantry and qualities of mind and heart are in part emphasized by both similitudes, his staying power that helps him in his determination to last to the end of whatever is to come stood side by side with the permanence of the sea. his gallantry is defined by the fight with the big fish which inhabits the waters of the sea. but his humility, natural piety, and compassion contrast with the pride, cruelty, and mercilessness that characterize the sea. the sea as the battlefield, the old man could die in any time. he is so insignificant that he has no power to fight with his adversary. the sea is very wide. the boat is very small. the danger is so much. however, santiago is strongly connected with the seascape. his relationship with it acquired three visible dimensions: different kinds of companionship, knowledge, and healthiness. he knows that the great sea is full of friends and enemies. the water of the sea provides him with the relief that his weary and wounded hands need. on more than seven occasions he washes his hands in the ocean and holds them submerged for more than a minute watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against them as the boat moves. he knows his sore hands would cure quickly. he bleeds them clean and the salt water will heal them. the dark water of the true gulf is the greatest healer that there is. when his body starts to be weary and the pain almost unbearable to the point that he feels faint, he looks in the seawater for the reinvigoration that he needs. he lifts some seawater with his left hand and puts it on his hand. then he puts more on and rubs the back of his neck. santiago is fully immersed in sea life. his sense of solidarity with the sea is what makes him find significance in it. he is in perfect harmony with the natural setting that surrounded him. the hues of sea, red plankton, yellow sargasso weed, the purple filaments of the man-of-war, and the lavender stripes of the marlin, fills the old man with wonder, and even more wondrous and impressive is the motion of the sea and its creatures. 2.religious significanceit is a parable of religious significance, its theme supported by the writers unobtrusive handing of christian symbols and metaphors. there were many details about christ suffering. the author was conscious of the old man used as comparison for christ embodiment. the great marlin fished by the old man was tied painfully by the hook in the mouth. in the progress of pulling the skiff, now the fish also became the embodiment of christ. “fish, the old man said. fish, you are going to have to die anyway. do you have to kill me too?” (hemingway 1993:79) he could not but feel sorrow and regarded as his friend. after waiting up till to fasten it to his skiff, he met the schools of sharks on the way of homing. the double christ images are very obvious. though hemingway said that in this story “there wasnt any symbolism, sea equaled sea, old man was old man, the marlin was itself, and the sharks were no better or no worse than other sharks.”(sucuocai 1994:71) however, it is obvious to admit that the old man, the sea and other things are more than what they literally mean.santiago, the hero, hemingway implied clearly, is either a human being or a spiritual being. he has the double identities with humanity and divinity. hemingway creates the image of santiago, a man of bravery, wisdom, dignity and diffidence; he purposefully makes the old man different both from people of his ages and of all times, just as the novel says, “there are many good fishermen and some great ones. but there is only you.” (hemingway 1993:17) he is distinct and superior to others. like coleridges ancient mariner, hemingways cuban fisherman is a character allowing the imagination of his creator to operate simultaneously in two different worlds of meaning and value, the one real and dramatic, the other moral and devotionally symbolic. sea, as a traditional mythic symbol, suggests a mysterious, powerful and hostile force. it is the very force to test a mans ability and dignity. the sea stands for several things. first, one interpretation is offered by a japanese critic who thinks that the sea in the novel represents productive and unfathomable womb in which lie many beautiful unknown things. so long as a person is daring, he will always find his luck there. second, the sea strikes the old man as more of a harmonious and feminine force than a hostile one. “they spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. but the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things, it was because she would not help them” (hemingway 1993:23). third, the old mans integration with the sea is due to the fact that they have some similar characteristics. the old man considers the sea as a woman who is sometimes kind but at other times capricious and unfriendly. the same is true of the old man. he is kind and genuinely loved by his neighbors and people he knew. however, he is sometimes so individualized and cocksure of himself that the readers tend to associate him with the negative and destructive aspects of the sea. hemingway takes some of the natural characteristics of the sea to compose most of the maritime section. the sea, likewise the rest of the elements, shares the realistic tone he intends for the novel. it is more than a mere setting. it is a molder of the main character. it both acts upon him and reflects him. there is a perfect harmony between the character and the sea in which he has been placed. even more significant are the lions which appeared in the old mans dream. the lions came down on the beach and played to together. from the novel, the old man did not dream of a single lion, but several young lions. the old man “no longer dreamed of storms, or of women, or of great occurrences, or of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife.”(burhans clinton 1988:263) that is to say, santiago does not care many individual deeds. what he really concerned is collective work, in another word, solidarity. he wants to wake human solidarity.the sharks mainly stand for any destroyed power. in fact, hemingways dedication to render natural objects or scenes precisely as they are, and the strong emotional power of his artistic apprehension of them is what made them acquire meaning in the actual process of writing. thus, natural scenes, which he uses as the principal environment in the novel, are certainly made as “significant” as possible and, therefore, full of their respective meanings. to plainly understand the symbols as physical things is to lose the essence of the story and be misled to think that this is a simple story about the old mans fighting with the marlin and the sharks. the understanding of these symbols is that they stand for multiple interpretations, and these interpretations will lead the readers to see clearly hemingways achievement in his theme.3.unconquerable spirit of manthe short story is a fable of the unconquerable spirit of mana creature capable of snatching spiritual victory from circumstances of disaster and material defeat. santiago, a hero, is the spiritual man. his life is not good condition. he is so poor that he has no pot of yellow rice and fish to eat. even as a fisherman, “the sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat” (hemingway 1993:5). he lives a lonely life. except a boy he once taught to fish, he was few friends. it seems that few people cared him. he is unfortunate and everything about him, but he is full of his optimism and his hopefulness about his future through his eyes, “his eyes were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated” (hemingway 1993:5). he is poor, but he does not care. he still takes about the baseball and dreams of the lines on the beach, which are the source of strength and courage, and continue to sail out fishing far away from the land in order to get more fish. while sailing for fishing, he has only a bottle of water with him and less food given by the boy. however, santiago is so confident that he faces bravely towards his fate and trouble. he uses his own spirit to defeat difficulties. when he fights with the marlin, “i could not fail myself and die on a fish like this, he said. now that i have him coming so beautifully, god help me endure. ill stay a hundred our fathers and a hundred hail marys. but i cannot say them now” (hemingway 1993:75). when he fights with the sharks, “i could not expect to kill them, he thought. i could have in my time. but i have hurt them both badly and neither one can feel very good. if i could have used a bat