Name : Lidya Annisa

NIM : 140705135

Class : C (English Literature)

Task II : The Old Man and the Sea

An Old Man and the Natural World

Nature have been existed before the first human was born. It is also the
nature that helps human stay alive. Nature gives us the most needed sources,
like vegetables, fruit, meat, milk, material, clothes, and etc. A very long time
ago, human has a very close relationship with nature. Some even praised the
nature as their God because they got everything from the nature. But centuries
by centuries, human’s way of thinking about nature change. We don’t appreciate
nature as we did in the past time. We do the exploitation to the nature, and
forget their true value. Now, when the nature shows its anger with disasters
and global warming, human starts to change their bahaviour by being close to
nature. Human starts to believe again that we have to make a good relationship
with nature to live good on the earth.

That is what Ernest Hemingway shows us in his novel ‘The Old Man and
The Sea’. This novel was published id Cuba in 1952, then it was awarded The
Pulitzer Prize for fiction 1953 and was cited by The Nobel Committe
contributing to the awarding of The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The story
was about an old fisherman who tries to show his true identity as a real
fisherman. The story shows about The Old Man’s relationship with the natural
world. How he still loves the nature after being disappointed by the sea. The
story mentions that The Old Man couldn’t get any fish in 84 days.

The Old Man was a fisherman named Santiago. He lived in the shack in
Cuba, near Havana as a very poor fisherman. He had gone 84 days without
getting a fish and was considered as Salao by his friends. Salao means very
unlucky. Everybody started underestimate him except a boy named Manolin,
that boy believed that Santiago was a very great fisherman. He was the one who
prepared for Santiago’s food, helped him take his fishing stuffs, and talked to
him about baseball. Even Santiago was an old man and Manolin was still a boy,
they acted equally as a friend. He wanted to go fishing with Santiago everyday,
but his father forbid him because Santiago was unlucky.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same
color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

The old man’s head was very old though and with his eyes closes there
was no life in his face.

Santiago was explained as a very old man. He was so old except his eyes
that were blue as the sea. Santiago loved nature very much. He made the
natural world as his friends, as if everything was alive like a human being.

He always thought of the sea as La Mar which is what people call her in is
Spanish when they love her.

Santiago always thought of the sea as a woman. He loved the sea as his
place to find fishes like he loved a woman. For Santiago, the sea always gave him
a great favors. Even sometimes the sea did something wild or wicked like the big
storms, it was because she could not help the firsherman. Santiago believed
that the moon affects the sea in the same way the moon affects the woman.

Sometimes those who find fish in the sea say bad things to the sea.
Because Santiago loved the sea as he love a woman, he always treated the sea
well and never spoke bad things to it. The story told us that Santiago couldn’t
find a fish after 84 days in the sea. Instead of became angry to the sea,
Santiago started his sailing again in the sea with his love. He still believed that
the sea still had something great for him in the further.

The other things in the story that shows about Santiago’s relationship
with the natural worlds are mentioned when Santiago started his 85th day. He
took his skiff in the Gulf Stream alone to find fish.

He was very fond of the flying fish as they were his principal friends on
the ocean.
 Besides the sea, Santiago also loved the flying fish. He thought of those
fish as his friends. A fisherman is a person who catch the fish to be sold in the
market, but Santiago thought that the fish as his friends that will help him to
continue living. He never thought fis as an enemy or something lifeless, he
believed that even a flying fish has a soul.

A small bird came towards the skiff from the north. He was a warbler
and flying very low over the water. The old man could see that he was very
tired.

When Santiago was in the middle of the ocean, came a small bird on his
skiff. His love for the natural world made him could feel the bird’s feeling.
Whether it was true or or not, Santiago could see that the bird was very tired.
He even talked to the bird as if it were a human being.

“How old are you?” the old man asked the bird.

For most of the human, bird is a bird. It is an animal that can’t think or
even understand our words. But for Santiago, a small bird in the middle of the
ocean was also his friends. He believed that the small bird would understand his
words. He apologised to the bird because he couldn’t hoist the sail and took the
bird in with the small breeze that was rising. Of course a bird couldn’t reply his
words, but Santiago didn’t mind about that. He liked the bird for accompanying
him, but eventually the bird was gone.

The birds have harder life than we do ecpect for the robber birds and
the heavy strong one

Before a bird that came towards his skiff, Santiago also met the birds
when he just left the shore. He even felt sorry for the birds because he knew
that the birds’ life was harder than we usually expected. While the birds were
so small and kind, the sea was so big and cruel. He asked about that to himself.

Santiago loved everything in the natural world. Because he was a

fisherman and most of his time was spending in the ocean, his love was shown by
his good relations with the animals in the ocean. The story mentioned us various
kinds of animals that live in the ocean. And Santiago loved all of them. Even the
very tiny things such as plankton could make Santiago felt happy.
 He watched his lines to see them go straight down of sight into the water
and he was happy to see too much plankton because it meant fish.

From the story Santiago told us implicitly that everything in the nature
has it own meaning. God didn’t make someting useless upon this earth. As the
quatation above, Santiago knew that plankton meant fish. If there was much
plankton in the water, it meant there was many fishes near. Because fish eat
plankton. Santiago got this knowledge because he put attention to nature
everytime he went out fishing. He cared about everything in the natural world.

Santiago watched everything in the ocean and felt very happy to see
everything that he could find. When the sun was higher, he found Agua Mala
floated in the water with the tiny fish swam among them. Agua Mala is a Spanish
name for jellyfish. Hemingway translated this word trough the explanation that
the fisherman saw. He explained it in detail and made us imagine about the form
of Agua Mala.

It floated cheerfully as a bubble with its long deadly purple filaments

trailing a yard behind it in the water.

Santiago was very happy to see this creature. He also knew that Agua
Mala’s fillaments are poisons for men, but the tiny fish that swam among them
were immune to its poison.

...The old man loved to see the big sea turtles eating them.

He loved green turtles and hawk-bills with their elegance and speed and
their great value and he had a friendly contempt for the huge,...

The Old Man and The Sea also mentioned about Santiago’s love to the
turtles. The story explained how Santiago love the turtles and their beviour in
the beach and in the ocean. But he felt sorry for all the turtles because human
are heartless towards them. Santiago knew that the turtle’s heart will beat for
hours after the turtle has been cut up and butchered. He thought that he had
heart, and he felt that he had feet and hands also are like the turtle.

Santiago loved and appreciate the turtles because he ate their eggs on
May. A fisherman had to be stronger on September and October for facing the
big fish. Santiago felt that he had to love something that give him much helps
and benefits. And the turtles give him strength from their eggs.
 Santiago’s love for the natural world was also shown when his baits was
taken by a very large fish. Santiago sure it was a marlin. He was very happy and
insisted on keeping the fish, even it was bigger than his skiff. Santiago couldn’t
pull in the huge marlin, but he let the fish pull his skiff. He still showed his love
to the fish that he considered as his friends, altough it made him wounded.

Santiago talked to his fish while holding the line. He was alone on the
skiff in the ocean, he had no radio, and he was hurted. But the great thing about
Santiago was that he never gave up. He wanted to show people that he was still
a good fisherman, and by bringing the marlin people would never underestimate
him anymore. He needed the fish.

“They play and make joked and love one another. They are our brothers
like the flying fish.”

Santiago talked to his fish when the porpoises came around them. He
acted as if the fish told him that it was afraid to see the porpoises. Santiago
kept talking to his fish as friends, or talking to himself for two days. He was
nearly insane and dead because of insisting on keeping the fish.

“I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and
now I must do the slave work.”

Finally on the third day, Santiago decided to kill the fish with the
harpoon because he had felt very tired. After struggling to kill the fish which is
considered as his friend, Santiago could kill the fish and wanted to bring it back
home. But the sharks then attacked his dead fish because the smelled the blood
of the Santiago’s fish. Santiago considered the sharks as his enemy because
they tried to get his fish. He fought against the sharks and killed the marko
shark. He felt sorry to his fish because he thought that it was his fault to bring
the fish into that condition.

You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him
when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill
him.

Santiago felt very sorry and full of sin for killing the fish. But his mind
debated about that. He knew that it was the right thing to do because he was a
fisherman, and a fisherman killed a fish because he love the fish. Santiago was
still thinking about that when he tried to save his fish from the sharks. And for
the shark case, he believed that killing the shark was a part of self defence.
Not because he hated the sharks. As the quotation below shows.

“I killed him in self-defence,” the old man said aloud. “And I killed him
well.”

In the end, the marlin was only a skeleton consisting mostly of its
backbone, its tail and its head. The sharks had ruined and ate its body. Santiago
finally reached the shore and left the fish skeleton on his skiff. He fell into a
deep sleep until Manolin came and cried to see his coming.

That boy loved Santiago very much as his bestfriend. He was worried for
that old man. While the other fishermen gathered around Santiago’s fish and
measured it. That fish changed their point of view towards Santiago.

From the story we find that even an old man insisted on showing his true
identity. His love to the natural world makes him believe that there is nothing
useless on the earth. The natural world also helped him to show his true identity
as a fisherman that already underestimated by people.

Santiago belived that his love to the natural world will make the nature
love him too. There is take and give for everything.