Ernest Hemingway’s the Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway would ace the SAT essay test. That's what I once read, in a criticism of SAT and the methods with which it is scored; while the grandiose, flowery prose of many writers would fail the high school aptitude test, Hemingway's short and direct sentences would receive full marks. On the other hand, however, my classmates also claim that those same sentences put them to sleep, Nevertheless, I personally found Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea delightful to read, mainly because of the beautiful images that he conveys through literary devices. His use of imagery is extremely effective in drawing us into the old man's world. When we are introduced to the old man, we know that he "was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck," and we see "the brown blotches of benevolent skin cancer" on his cheeks. Despite this vivid description of his age, Hemingway ensures that we also notice his eyes, which were “the same color of the sea and were cheerful and undefeated".

At the same time he paints us a realistic picture of the main character, Hemingway also let the old man's personal qualities shine through his eyes. Later on, Hemingway launches into the fantastical scene of the old man's dream: "The long golden beaches and the high capes and the great brown mountains he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck". With simple language, he is able to appeal to the senses of sight, hearing, and smell. In addition to sensory description, Hemingway also uses similes and metaphors to further help us visualize the scenes. In the beginning, a simile was included in the introduction of the old man, for his scars "were as old as erosions in the a fishless desert".

Not only do we associate the character with something ancient, but the descriptor "f'ishless" is interesting; it implies that in the book, "fishless"-ness is rare. In this way, he incorporates elements of the setting within the simile. As the novel progresses, we see that this is a technique that Hemingway utilizes again and again. For example, the old man‘s shirt "had been patched so many times that it was like the sail“; again, Hemingway manages to give us information about two objects, the shirt, and the sail. Furthermore, metaphors also appear in the novella, as in the passage where the old man gazes into the calm sky. He smiles contently at the "friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus".

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As we imagine a sky full of sweet desert and wispy feathers, we discover the whimsical side of the old man, too. Another literary device that Hemingway employs is personification. It is apparent that his favorite object to breathe life into is the ocean. He speaks of the sea as a woman, who "gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them". By personifying the ocean, Hemingway illustrates the relationship between the fishermen and the sea: They look upon it with love, despite its power to destroy them. However, the primary quality that Hemingway endows the ocean with is love, not hate.

As the old man "passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket," the water seems to be at peace. Through such literary devices as sensory description, similes and metaphors, and personification, Hemingway creates breathtaking images. Although friends may complain that the story is too dull to enjoy, I think | see why The Old Man and the Sea is considered a classic.

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