Abstract
The Old Man and the Sea tells the frustrated experience that the old fisherman fishes in the course. The theme is deep, and it is a song of praise of heroism. “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated” has been the classic saying and the old man also has been the most typical and the most representative of the Hemingway’s “tough guy”. When Hemingway talked about the successful factors later, the little boy was mentioned in the same breath with the old man.
This paper starts with the details and it is spanided into two main parts to discuss the indispensable roles of the little boy in the novel. It is him who helps to perform the theme of “grace under pressure”: during 40 days, the old man with the little boy went to fish but without taking a fish, when his situation was getting worse step by step, the little boy’s leaving was the heavy pressure that achieved the extreme stern for certain. However, it was so “heavy pressure” that his manner was graceful when the old man faced afterwards defeat and his optimistic, generous life attitude was worthy tasting by people carefully; it is him who plays the role of leading, inspiring to the readers, and increasing the appeal of the work, enriching the content of the work: although the little boy appears only at the beginning and the ending in the novel, there is nothing in his inner state but the old man, so his attitude and emotions towards the old man affects the readers’ emotions for the old man quietly and gradually. And it is unavoidable that his inner feeling leads and impacts the readers’ emotions.
Key words: roles; the little boy; the old man; grace under pressure; The Old Man and the Sea
摘要
《老人与海》讲述了老渔夫捕鱼过程中的坎坷经历，主题深刻，是一部英雄主义的赞歌。“一个人不是生来就要被打败的，你可以消灭他，但就是打不败他。”已经成为至理名言，老人也成为海明威式“硬汉子”的最典型、最完美的代表。当海明威谈到小说成功的因素时，曾颇为自得地将小男孩与老人相提并论。
本文拟从有关细节入手，分析讨论小男孩在《老人与海》中所起的微妙且不可或缺的作用：是他帮助表现了“重压下的优雅风度”这一主题：在老人84天没有捕到鱼，处境一步步恶化的厄运中，小男孩的离去无疑让老人的“重压”达到了极度严峻的地步，然而正是由于如此的“重压”，老人后来面对失败时的态度才可谓“优雅”，所表现的大度、乐观的人生态度才值得人们仔细地品味；是他对读者发挥着一定的牵引、打动和启发作用，从而增强了作品的感染力，丰富了作品的内涵：孩子虽然只出现在小说的首尾两处，但是孩子的内心世界里别无他物，只有老人，他对老人的态度和感情潜移默化地左右着读者对老人的感受，他的内心情感无可避免地要牵动影响着读者的情绪。
关键词：作用；小男孩；老人；重压下的优雅风度；《老人与海》
1. Introduction
1.1 About the background
The Old Man and the Sea is so important to Hemingway and the American literature that there are lots of comments about it. But the research on the little boy, Mandolin, is minimal. It seems that his role is irrelevant and unimportant to the novel. In fact, the appearance of the little boy is the emergence of a coincidence according to his role in the work.
Hemingway published a piece of communication entitled On the Blue Water in the Esquire in April, 1936. The Old Man and the Sea is written on the basic of the material. In the middle of the novel, we can always feel the existence of the boy, because the old man thinks of the little boy for more than ten times during the three intense and arduous days. Moreover, when Hemingway talked about the factors of the novel’s success later, the little boy is mentioned in the same breath with the old man that he is lucky to have a good old man and a little boy, and some writers have forgotten these things recent. This shows Hemingway lays his artistic creativity and ingenuity on the little boy. So the little boy’s role in this novel is worthy being considered by critics and readers.
1.2 About the novel
2. The roles of the boy in The Old Man and the Sea
2.1 Helping show the old man’s pressure
One of the brightest spots in The Old Man and the Sea is the perfect expression of Hemingway’s quality of grace under pressure, which is composed of two factors: pressure and grace. And pressure is the premise: only under the background of pressure will the hero have the elegant manners in the real significance. These two factors are mostly shown by the little boy. To show pressure, Hemingway describes the background of the story in four levels by picturing the details when the little boy leaves the old man. In this way, he stresses the heavy pressure at the very beginning of the novel, which lays a necessary premise and an atmosphere for the so-called grace. To show the grace, Hemingway describes several details when the old man gets together with the little boy under the pressure at the beginning and the end of the novel, drawing the image and targets in describing the image of the old man.
First is the heavy pressure. The first sentence of this novel accounts the difficulties that the old man faced: the old man has been futile for 84 days. This is of course, sympathetic to people, but it is not enough to arouse people’s sympathy only by a number and the pressure it stated is also ambiguous. What’s more, the manners later discussed is difficult to move the readers and the novel’s depth will be affected while it is difficult to make a clear sense through a few words and the old man’s alone appearing in the novel. So Hemingway gives a considerable description of the little boy in order to set off a gradual deterioration situation of the old man. In this increasing pressure, the old man’s failure is particular tragic, and the manner of the old man to the failure is elegant.
At the beginning, the old man and the little boy sailed together every day, but they do not catch any fish for more than 40 days, which is quite “unlucky”,[1] this is the first layer of pressure. At this time, the boy is forced to leave the old man and catches on another boat followed his parents’ order, thus the old man is left alone in his boat which is a symbol of his failure. Obviously, failure and loneliness is the second level of pressure. The boy began to learn to fish following the old man when he is only five. The old man’s wife passed away several years ago, so the child is actual his only companion in his lonely life, and the departure of the little boy at this unfortunate moment is undoutable a heavy blow to him. Previously, it has said that the little boy does not appear in the material on which the story based. The little boy is imaged by Hemingway as the sole partner and assistant of the old man, and then takes him away from the old man mercilessly, which is the so-called “giving it before taking it”. In this way, the old man’s miserable situation becomes even worse. Moreover, after the boy’s leaving, the old man does not catch any fish for 44 days which makes bear an almost desperate feeling. This is the third level of pressure. Although the first and third level of the pressure having nothing to do with the little boy, the boy’s leaving spanides the 84 days into three levels to increase the pressure layer by layer, thereby creating a sense of more and more, dignified.
On the other hand, “the boy has gone at their order in another boat which caught three good fish the first week” [2], after his leaving, so it forms a sharp contrast between the old man’s deteriorate fate and the little boy’s. As we all known, the fishermen all believe in the luck very much. In the novel, Hemingway deliberately uses the word “salao” and stresses it is the superior degree of the “unlucky”. And we can see that the old man also believes firmly in fortune from the words he usually uses such as “lucky”, “gamble”, “take your chance”, [3] and the detail that he buys lottery tickets to bet on his fortune. Thus, it is common to others if they catch fish with a sudden transit, but the White House meets the little boy who has followed the old man for 40 days “without taking a fish”. [4]It is more certain that the old man is being in “unlucky” [5] according to the fishermen’s opinion. Beyond any doubt, it is a heavy blow to the old man and almost puts him into despair. Although here Hemingway can keep calm a distance from his own feelings when he describes the hero of the novel, it is not difficult for the readers understand to the old man’s situation—full of failure, loneliness, embarrassment, and nearly in despair only because he is able to describes accurately the details which can arose the readers’ feeling in an appropriate order. It is this pressure that force the old man to “go far to fish”,[6] therefore having the following experience.
Hemingway’s story has once been accused that the scenes are too narrow. But not all the literary works must pursue a grand scene. Here Hemingway put a lonely old man into a confined environment in order to match the hero’s real situation. What’s more, although the scene is limited, it can also show the author’s originality if he may arrange the content well in this limited scene. It is thus method that makes the beginning of the novel more wonderful. Here Hemingway uses a unique scent way to sympathy to his hero. We can fell his sympathy for the people with deserves sympathy. This is Hemingway’s style.
2.2 Offering a method to perform the old man’s grace
Pressure has been stated, but how the old man’s grace is performed vividly in the novel, it is not exact to say that the grace is only lies in the brave and tenacity in his fight with fish. Grace is not a simple or notional thing but always reflected in people’s inner and external behaviors especially in facing with difficulties, while the boy in this novel offers an important way to represent the old man’s grace.
Although, the old man lives under a heavy pressure, he always has a natural and unaffected attitude. The child has learnt fishing skills following the old man when he was 5 years old. And now the old man is at low ebb in his life and is trapped by bad luck, but the child leaves him and gets a great success in another boat. If this happens on others, even they do not hate the child, there will be an unbalance in their heart. But the old man shows his broad mind and understanding. He says to the boy: “I know you leave me not because you do not believe me.”[7] When the little boy leaves him at his parents’ order and catches another boat, the old man says: “I know, it is quite normal.”[8] Having no result after three days hard working but when he is told that the boy has a harvest every day in these days, however, he does not feel any unpleasant at all. Instead, he feels happy for him and remarks “very good” [9] immediately. In addition, although the old man is isolate and unlucky, he is not in a spirit of sensitive to the concern of others. By contrary, he accepts the boy’s care calmly. He does not take it for granted that students ought to care teachers, but views the child as his peer and partner. The little boy also worries about if the old man has become over-sensitive in such an embarrassed situation. Therefore, he asks tentatively whether the old man is willing to drink a cup of beer with him or not. And the old man agreed: “why not?” “Between fishermen” [10] While they are drinking, many fishermen laugh at the old man, but he does not become angry. After drinking, the old man says to the boy: “you bought me a beer.” “You are already a man.”[11] These details show that the old man is reasonable, amiable and kind-hearted as well as has a natural and healthy life attitude. His understanding for life has reached a simple and natural realm. This is the grace.
Secondly, the old man has another minute side in his character. Actually, the old man is the model of Hemingway’s “tough guy”, but it does not mean that he is a stubborn fool or dumb cow. Let us see how he wakes the child up in the morning. “He took told of one foot gently and held it until the boy woke and turned and looked at him”[12], but his warmth does not affect his image of “tough guy” at all. On the contrary, the background of standing great pressure in spirit just makes the old man’s grace keeping in the balance of hard and soft.
The old man has a confident and optimistic life attitude in the novel. In fact, the old man would like to let the boy return to him very much in his mind. But when the boy asks to return to the boat by himself, the old man rejects: “no you are with a lucky boat, stay with them.” “If you were my boy. I would take you out and gamble. But you are your father’s and your mother’s and you are in a lucky boat.”[13] Because the boy’s leaving is falling his parents’ order, the old man does not want to put him in a embarrass situation and let the boy get a little bad luck from him which reflects his high spirit of responsibility towards the child. When the child says it again after the old man’s return, he rejects him out of the same consideration. As the child’s insisting, the old man accepts him calmly and then makes a plan to their following fish. However, the change of the old man’s attitude is not conflicting seeing from the surface, the old man still remains nothing at last, and the whole cycle is from failure to failure. But it is different between the beginning and the end after three days’ hardship and thought. He has a better understanding to the sea, the human, the fish and himself. Therefore, he has enough confidence to accept the child’s return and, feels that it is necessary to create a new future together with the boy. The old man’s acceptance reflects that Hemingway’s art and philosophy has always tended to return to the society, especially from 1937 on. This is the perfect integration of the personality and social.
2.3 The little boy is the best complement to the old man’s characterAs for Hemingway’s “tough guy”, some critics pointed out that as the heroic manner is too conspicuous, which determined their actions is quite obvious and sometimes it caused the figures thinking abstract and isolated. However, in The Old Man and the Sea, the image of the old man is entire because the author arranges a little boy purposely and describes him in a great deal of details. Thus, the grace of the old man becomes more realistic and vivid, which of course should be attributed to the existence of the little boy.
In addition to describe the old man through the boy’s and his eyes, Hemingway also draws a directive and detailed description of the boy’s character. In this way, it reveals the old man’s character charm from another standpoint which shows a optimistic trend in the end of the novel. The boy began to learn to fish at the age of 5, which is the age that the children begins to have memories about things. Therefore, in the process of the boy’s character’s shaping, the old man inevitably occupied an important position. Hemingway’s description about the boy’s personality is actually a complement to perform the old man’s character.
Although the boy is young, he is not boyish. He learns the fishing skills, also inherits the spirit of the self-esteem and self-reliant from the old man. After several years living with the old man, he has understood the hardship of life and the duty of a man. Here there is a detail: the boy is very little, at the age of sleepy, after the old man wakes him up, he is sleepy when he goes out of the door. In such a young age he has to face the reality of the life, which obviously causes people’s sympathy in their hearts. But the boy does not mind it, his tender shoulder has already accustomed to the lives’ responsibility and he regards it is what a man must do. The words are so sonorous and forceful to driver a sound. Its auditor must have followers. The pupil is like this, let alone the master! Here the boy’s personality to set off the old man’s. it provides an indispensable preclude to draw the perfect image of the “tough guy”. As a result, the heroic mettle of the old man appears logically.
At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway expresses his optimistic tendency to life by the symbolic meaning of the boy’s return at last. The little boy decides to return to the old man even ignoring his father’s authority and the fishermen’s superstition about the luck:
“The hell with luck.” the boy said. “
I will bring the luck with me.”
What will your family say?”[14]
“I don’t care. I caught two yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.”[15]
Before the boy’s return, it is just a isolated struggle of the old man. Therefore, no matter how it is brave, it is not enough to be a source of optimism. Hemingway has convinced for several decades that: life is a lonely struggle and there is nothing meaningful behind it. So some critics point out: the figures written by Hemingway all go to the old way---exploration, loneliness, the result is a dead end. But this pattern changes in The Old Man and the Sea; the old man not only has a follow but also can find the support of the boy. And the return of the boy is his new starting---the boy becomes more and more mature in the fluencies of the old man’s heroic spirit: In this sense, The Old Man and the Sea is oriented to the future. At the end of the novel, Hemingway deals with the boy, which shows that: he is returning to his starting point through a new path.
Carlos. Baker points out that: in a certain sense, the child and the old man symbolized the youth and the elderly of the human. In the old man’s subconscious, the child is another stage of his life. Because it is impossible for a person to dream two stages of himself in one dream, so though the child stays with him all day, he never dreams the boy. Therefore the child’s return means that human being’s intelligence and mental strength will be passed on from generation to generation, which is the novel’s optimism lies in, also is Hemingway’s lifelong pursuit and the highest expression of the “tough guy’s spirit”. It is the reason why the boy can not be taken place by the women having the same age of the old man, like Catharine (the heroine of Farewell to Arms) or Albright (the heroine of The Sun Also Rises). Because the same aged women and men are in the parallel or antagonistic concept, and can not express the continual optimism, which is an important distinction between The Old Man and the Sea and the other works of Hemingway’s. The boy’s return alights the novel and enriches the content of the work, which inspires readers to make a further exploration on the meaning and tendency of the work.
There are many different views about whether there are symbols or not in this novel. Hemingway once wrote to his friend, Bernard Bryson: there is not any symbol, the sea is the sea, the old man is the old man, the child is the child, and fish is fish, what people says about symbolism is nonsense. In fact, the reason for saying like this is that he wants to oppose that kind of rhetoric, unfounded and so—called symbolism. Objectively speaking, symbolism is often stressed the symbolic nature of the whole work, however, Hemingway is too outright to be the symbolism. But this does not mean that there is no symbolism and symbolic significance in his works. The symbolism, as a whole and the symbolic method as an rhetoric method are two different concepts. Hemingway acknowledges later in public that there are symbolic methods in his works, he explains that he tries to portray a real old man, a real child, a real sea, a real fish and real sharks. If he can picture them very well and realistically, they will mean many things. Here what he says that mean many things is actually a symbolic meaning, which is based on the profound understanding of the novel. Of course, we can not view a realistic novel as a symbolic one just because it applies some symbolic methods; meanwhile, we can not deny there are symbolisms in a word just because it is a realistic novel.
3. The roles in moving and inspiring readers
In this novel, the second important role of the boy is that he leads and inspires the readers. Hemingway’s direct describing of the little boy does not only reveal the boy’s simple and complex emotion towards the old man, but also portray the boy’s personality in order to enhance the effective of the work and rich the content of the work.
3.1 The little boy’s emotion
In The Old Man and the Sea, in a certain extent, especially at the beginning and the end of the novel, the boy is much close to the readers than the old man. So the boy’s feeling is inevitable to lead and impact the readers` emotion. There is nothing in the boy’s inner state but the old man. His attitude and emotions towards the old man affects the readers` emotion for the old man quietly and gradually. So Carlos Baker once said that the boy has a role to make people pay more sympathy to the old man. Because at the beginning and the end of the novel, we see the old man in the boy’s eyes which fills with respect and sympathy. But in fact, the boy’s respect and sympathy towards the old man is not static in his inner state ode mind. His emotion goes along a deeper and deeper trajectory which is from sympathy to heartache; and such kind of feeling becomes stronger and stronger, at last rising to the peak and bursting out, “he started to cry” [16]. The fluctuations of the boy’s inner world affect the readers’ emotion unknowingly. The emotional changes of the boy can be spanided into 3stages.
3.2 The little boy’s sympathy in the static stage
The boy’s sympathy for the old man is very simple and plain: “the old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him” [17]. The boy remains concerned about the old man after getting lucky in another boat. He can not feel happy even when he gets achieves quite good grades because of the old man’s hardship, which reflects the boy’s sincere emotion for the old man. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty. He wants to return to the old man. After the old man’s several rejections, he still wants to help the old man to do something. It is unbootable that the boy’s deep and simple emotion has branded deeply in the mind of the readers by the first impression.
3.3 The little boy’s respect and worry in the subtle, fluctuating stage
The little boy shows his respect for the old man all the time. He memorized the past experience of lucky and unlucky together with the old man, he regards the old man as the best fisherman, an unusual fisherman. The boy’s respect to the old man does not reduce because of the old man’s frustration. It is the boy’s encouragement in spirit that support the old man to go on struggle impregnably. Later the old man realizes that if it is not the child, he has already finished.
Although the boy hopes that the old man can create another brilliant prospect ion, he worries about the old man’s psychological condition as well. He is afraid of that the old man is so old and feeble that he can’t bear the difficulties alone, sometimes he also reveals his worries:“I’ll try to get him to work far out. Then if you hook something truly big we can come to you aid.”[18]These common words seem random but is a good wish of good luck which leads the readers attention to the uncertain sea.
3.4 The little boy’s affirmation in the outbreak stage
The old man returns from the sea exhausted and ragged both in physically and mentally, enduring all kinds of hardships and difficulties in three days, he catches a big fish which has a special meaning for him, unfortunately, the big fish is gnawed by sharks and left a pair of huge skeleton. The victory gains nothing, the results is disappointed. But the boy’s eyes do not stay on the pale skeleton only; he perceives the success that the old man ever achieved from the failure:
“They beat me, Manolin,”he said.
“They truly beat me.”
“He didn’t beat you. Not the fish.”[19]
What the boy said is a fact. That is the boy’s affirmation in his deep mind which is also the old man’s wish of proving he is unusual. But the boy’s attitude to the old man’s return is not only positive. After all, the old man returns in empty-hand, and badly bruised, so when the boy sees the old man’s hands, he can not help tearing full of the face. But what he feels heartache is not only the blooding hands, but what even more distressing is that the old man’s fish which symbolizes the victory has been gnawed by sharks which make the old man feels more disappointed after 84 days failure. The emotion of the boy breaks out at this time because of the greatest pain in his heart. He starts to cry and does not care how others will look at him, and his crying hits readers’ hearts even weeps still after they finished their reading.
4. Conclusion
From the above discussion, we can see that the little boy is essential to the novel in two aspects: in helping to show the old man’s so-called “grace under pressure” and to move and inspire the readers. It is not exaggerated to say that the work could not be the work we see now without the child. The image of the child is clear and discernible in readers’ mind, the more description of the boy, the stronger feeling we feel of the old man. The boy is just like the snow at the top of the mountain. The mountain becomes deeper and more valiant because of the existence of the snow. The old man is like the mountain, it is unnecessary for him to talk too much, because the readers can feel him when they read the little boy.
Notes
[1] ---- [19] The Old Man and the Sea, Simon & Schuster Inc. 1995
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