Hemingway's Transcendentalism

It is common for authors to draw inspiration for writing from real events. (Summarize Hemingway’s experience) The novel follows Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman who ventures out to sea alone and manages to hook an enormous marlin. To his disappointment, Santiago’s catch is devoured by sharks before he can return to land. This tale of struggle, loss, and despair seems to derive from the fishing trip that Hemingway went on years before *. However, the plot is not the only aspect of the book. One could draw connections between the story of The Old Man and the Sea and an usual fishing trip that Hemingway went on, however I will explore how the meaningful events in the author’s life influenced the symbolic aspects of the novel as well as the themes.
As a child, Ernest Hemingway spent his summers on the lakes of northern Michigan. As John O’Connor puts, “If you want to understand the writer, you have to start here. Michigan-era Hemingway is threshold Hemingway -- young and raw, before the fame.” His time spent fishing, hunting, sailing, and swimming had a major influence for Hemingway’s characters including Santiago. The immense glee that the writer felt those summers was material for many …show more content…
It was there that his appreciation of nature blossomed, which led to the idea in The Old Man and the Sea. The book not only emphasizes Santiago’s loneliness, but it embraces his individuality. “They spread apart after they were out of the mouth of the harbour and each one headed for the part of the ocean where he hoped to find fish. The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind.” *. Simply venturing out to an isolated section of the sea shows the character Santiago as independent, a key element of transcendentalism. The other elements, self-reliance and nature are also very prevalent in the novel. *finish