The Masculinity In Santiago's Journey

After finding and creating relationships in nature, Santiago feels the need to control them to justify his decisions. Santiago attempts to control the relationships he has created to calm his anxieties about his masculinity and and his ability to accomplish challenges in his aging years. He wants to appear still powerful and in control of his life. He needs to find validation, but has only himself and nature to turn to. Using the results of his escapade at sea to judge himself and his manliness, Santiago has a delusional perception of himself and his masculinity. The juxtaposition of the sea and the marlin point to a difference in gender associations. The feminine sea has the power to act as she wants, yet Santiago respects and admires her, …show more content…
Trying to prove his worthiness as a man and as a person served only himself. No one else benefitted from his escapade. He begins and ends the journey lonely and with only Manolin. The purpose of the journey becomes blurred when the old man comes back defeated and without a fish to show. However, the trial of patience and endurance gave the old man more humility and grace in his old age. Bert Bender analyzes Santiago’s trip as primal, triggered by his isolation, and that dealing with the isolation of the open sea leads him to accept his part his old age (11). His pride sends him into a stubborn and primal urge to prove himself, which cause his near-death. The associations Santiago has in his mind lead him to behave in a way that makes sense to him, such as risking his life to catch a fish simply because of his gender and his occupation. Near the end of the journey he tells himself to “suffer like a man” (Hemingway 26). This shows that he connects manhood to suffering and enduring, proposing that he would rather suffer than renounce his masculinity. While on the boat Santiago mentions that the effort took “what was left of his strength and long gone pride” again associating his pride with physical strength and ability (Hemingway 26). Bender also claims that Hemingway intended to “imagine a man who can accept and engage life on its own bloody terms, and do so with dignity” that Santiago began prideful so that his fight and reaction to losing to the fish had the greatest impact on his character (10). Pridefully attempting to behave as a strong young man in an old man’s body only hurt him. He eventually acknowledges his feeling of weakness against the fish, he hopes he “[does] not have to fight again” (Hemingway 33). Though keeping up the fight reflects the qualities of the ideal male, Santiago realizes that his body could not endure that again.