What Did the Old Man Santiago Actually Plan to Do at Sea off Cuba Cover Image

ШТА ЈЕ СТАРАЦ САНТЈАГО ЗАПРАВО ПЛАНИРАО ДА ПОСТИГНЕ НА МОРУ БЛИЗУ КУБЕ
What Did the Old Man Santiago Actually Plan to Do at Sea off Cuba

Author(s): Aleksandar B. Nedeljković
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Other Language Literature, Philology
Published by: Универзитет у Крагујевцу
Keywords: Ernest Hemingway;“Old Man and the Sea”;business plan

Summary/Abstract: Hemingway’s novella “The Old Man and the Sea” ought to be re-considered from a purely practical standpoint, as an economic fishing project. We applied the kind of strictness which we usually apply in the studies of another genre, science fiction: we demanded the same high level of plausibility and logical coherence. But Hemingway’s famous story did not endure such high criteria of quality. Here is why. The protagonist, old Santiago, is a professional fisherman, so his job is, simply, to catch fish and sell them as meat, for the markets in Cuba. We are told that for 84 days he did not catch anything at all, not a single fish, so his economic situation was very bad indeed, he was in deep poverty. It would stand to reason that he would want to catch some fish, any fish, and then return quickly to sell it. Then he happens to catch a huge fish, a 750-kilo marlin, about five and a half meters long, which could not possibly have fit inside his small boat (a skiff). This fish is about ten times heavier than Santiago, and much heavier than Santiago and the skiff together. He persists in the unreasonable, foolhardy task of overpowering the marlin. When he, quite improbably, does overpower the marlin, he lets it stay plump in the water, to be eaten by sharks. Definitely he could have carved four 25-kilogram chunks of best meat, and hurried home, but, instead, he attaches the fish to the outside of his skiff, and, in consequence, returns very slowly, so that the sharks have time to eat all the meat. But, previously, he did catch a dolphin, which, science tells us, could not have been of less than 40 kilo weight, and kills him; but instead of keeping this excellent catch, and hurrying back with it, he merely eats a few bites of dolphin’s very good meet, but raw, and without salt, and then throws him back into the water! So we really must ask ourselves what his business plan, with which he sailed out from a small fishing village Kohimar near Havana, was. Why did he not cut the line with the marlin, and return immediately, triumphantly, with the dolphin in his skiff? His plan must have been quite something else. But, it is incredible that whole generations of critics did not notice this. They should have been able to see through the author’s rather obvious narrative strategies. For us, only one possible conclusion remains, about Santiago’s motives.

  • Issue Year: XIII/2012
  • Issue No: 49/1
  • Page Range: 171-189
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Serbian