An Analysis Of Santiago’s Tough Guy Image In The Old Man And The Sea

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July21,1899-1961on July2), a spokesman of "lost generation", is considered the most famous novelists of the20th century. Few writers in America gained such great success and worldwide reputation as he did in literary world. A lot of writers not only in America but also in other parts of the world are influenced by his special writing style which is known as "Iceberg Principle". He had a legendary life experience, which was combined with his writing creation by him successfully. One and one more typical heroes of Hemingway appeared from his works. They share the similar features. They are human beings who are faced with failure or even death without losing their heart and dignity. Instead, they are fighting with their unfortunate fate bravely and show to us their grace under great pressure.The Old Man and the Sea, his representative work, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in1954. Santiago, the main character of the book, became his typical literary image—"Tough Guy". This book was so successful that it aroused interest of many readers as well as critics. This novel created a real man who is brave, strong-willed through a seemed simple process of Santiago’s fishing. He dares to accept any challenge and has a noble faith. In face with difficulties, he sticks to his philosophy of life:the meaning of life lies in keeping fighting instead of success or failure. Fighting is the best embodiment of the spirit of tough guy. When facing failure or even death, a man should still believe it firmly that a man can be destroyed physically but can never be defeated mentally. Death, as part of the chain of life which cannot be avoided, is human’s eternal fate. Human beings are in pursuit of life all the time, but they also have to accept the trial of death. As one of the greatest writers in the twentieth Century, Hemingway has a special feeling to death. He turned his life experiences into words, and once clearly said: life is a process towards death, but the one who are pursuing the original meaning of life was sure to be able to face the death, and can respond to it with dignity. In The Old Man and the Sea, the old fisherman Santiago is a good interpretation of the author’s spirit. In face of voidable death, he still believes:a man can be destroyed, but not defeated. The real love for life is daring to struggle against the cruel social reality and cruel fate, and cherish life. This thesis, through the textural analysis of The Old Man and the Sea and the image analysis of its protagonist, try to expound Santiago’s tough guy characters and his spirit of struggling with his destiny and death, and guided by his spirit, he finally realized the transcendence of death.The first part of this paper aims to understand the creative sources of Hemingway’s tough guys through the writer’s background and his works. It’s undoubted that the Author’s family background and his legendary life experiences bring great impact on his writing creation. The image of tough guy is the focus of Hemingway during his late years of writing career, and Santiago is the representative of its tough-guy images. The second part is literary review. In this part, I try to get a general understanding of all the studies on Hemingway and his The Old Man and the Sea. The third part of this paper analyzes the old man’s features as a tough guy shown by fighting with the life when facing bad luck through his psychology, language and his fighting with the fish. In the struggle with life, the old man is also feeling and experiencing death again and again. The fourth part of this paper analyzes the tough guy, Santiago’s attitude towards death. At the very beginning, just like others, he is afraid of mysterious death and faces it bravely and directly. Then, he gets to know death. Gradually, his attitude to death change to transcend himself to achieve a spiritual eternal. The Told man’s attitude towards life and death undoubtedly has a positive social significance. Failure and death are inevitable, so a real man is supposed to fight for his own value of existence instead of just for the results. The existence of death should be the reason why we cherish life and love life more. Undoubtedly, the spirit embodied by Santiago has great instructive significance to other’s life now and then. However, it also has its limitation nowadays. The last part will focus on the significance and limitation of the image of tough guy.