Essay: "Hemingway's the Old Man and the Sea: Killing Marlin, Killing God?"

http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=K1cIZmFe7KoC&hl=en

“God is dead.” Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher in 19th century, described the start of modern era as the death of God in Christianity, which means old religious morals were denied in Western society. Earnest Hemingway, in his novel entitled The Old Man and the Sea published in 1952, chooses this process of Western modernization as the motif. The Nobel Prize American novelist shows an ironic story, in which a faithful old fisherman kills the most beautiful marlin that he has ever seen—God in the Sea—by his own hand.

Although Santiago, an old fisherman in the story, does not consider himself as a religious man (“I am not religious.” (p. 64)), he disrespects unfaithful villagers (pp.10-11) and prays to God many times during his two-night and three-day fishing. While he has a contest in endurance with the marlin, he prays saying “Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish. Wonderful though he is,” (p. 65). Obviously, he is heavenly-minded. He is an old-type fisherman, rowing a wooden skiff and loving the Sea as if it was his lover or his mother. In other words, he lives in pre-modern era.

The old but strong fisherman eventually kills the most beautiful or a calm or noble fish in his life (p. 92) with his harpoon, and heads for the port he departs. However, the religious man starts to doubt what he has done, when he and his fish are threaten by sharks: “Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people…You [Santiago] killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman…If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?” (p. 105). His sense of remorse toward the victim, which is destroyed by sharks again and again, is strengthened over and over. He concludes “I wish it were a dream and that I had never holed him. I’m sorry about it, fish. It makes everything wrong,” (p. 110).

After killing the marlin, the devotional fisherman never prays to God. It is not only because he achieved the goal of his vocation but also because the unprecedentedly beautiful marlin, which symbolizes God, is dead. None of the characters in the story, including the fisherman, considers the fish as the God in the Sea. However, there are some implicit messages by Hemingway in the short story. Pride, which enables the fisherman to become a victor, and Greed, which leads to his long voyage, are two of the seven deadly sins in Christianity. Though Santiago tries to achieve his goal as a fisherman, his pride and greed results nothing at last. Instead, as mentioned above, the faithful fisherman suffers from the sense of guilt for his killing the marlin. Despite his killing God, he cannot remove the awareness of sinfulness. He is too faithful and religious as if he feels his god still living in his body: “When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit,” (p. 103).

In sum, Santiago cannot adjust himself to the modern era, as other villagers. Although his pride and greed is uncommon, the old fisherman is too faithful to kill his God. He loves the Sea and fishing too much, as Hemingway does in Key West and Cuba.