Santiago Symbolism

In the book The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway included many institutions of symbolism. The Old Man And The Sea was the last book written by Ernest Hemingway in 1952 before his death in Idaho in 1961. The symbolism includes the comparison of Santiago when he was younger to the great baseball player Joe DiMaggio. Other examples of symbolism include; the marlin which symbolizes Santiago as his older and current self. Another use of symbolism is comparing Manolin, the young boy, to the lions that Santiago dreams about. In the story Santiago compares himself to the great Yankees baseball player Joe DiMaggio. Like DiMaggio’s bone spur Santiago also endures pain. Though they both go through this pain they keep on persevering. Santiago’s quest to catch the fish left him with a traumatic pain in his left hand when the fish pulled the rope through his hand without warning. Another thing that caused Santiago to succumb to pain was after the sharks attacked the marlin while Santiago was disoriented in the ocean. Alike DiMaggio being a great baseball player, Santiago wants to live up to his standards to be a great fisherman. Santiago expresses his connection with DiMaggio when he says “I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing. They said his father was a fisherman.” (pg 22) Another comparison is when Santiago also says “My head …show more content…
This comes in when Santiago says that he “no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy.” (pg 25) In the book it He says about how he has not dreamed about the lions lately nor the boy either. Sometimes he would say he wished the boy was there, then he dreamed about the lions. At the end of the book Manolin watches him dream about the