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s 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
The Old Man and the Sea earned its author the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1952, and was instrumental in winning him the Nobel Prize for literature two years later. It is a short novel about Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman who has gone for 84 days without taking a fish. Therefore, the boy, Mandolin, who used to sail with him, is forced to leave him and catch in another boat. The old man insists on fishing alone and at last, he hooks an eighteen-foot, giant marlin, the largest he has ever known. But the fish is very powerful and disobedient. It tows the old man and his boat but to see for 48 hours, with the old man hearing the whole weight of the fish through the line on his back. The old man, with little food and sleep, has to endure much pain and fights against his treacherous hand cramp. To his great excitement, on his third day at sea, he succeeds in drawing the weekend marlin to the surface and harpoons it. On his way home, he lashes本论文由英语论文网 www.51lunwen.org整理提供 marlin alongside his boat because it’s too big to be pulled into the boat. But, unfortunately, the come across sharks as much might and many weapons as he can summon, but only to find a giant skeleton of his marlin left after his desperate defense. At last, Santiago, having lost what he fought for, reached the shore and struggles to his shack. He falls into sound sleep, dreaming of Africa and the lions again. His struggle wins his much respect.
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