I have never seen Christian symbolism used this much in a book as I have in The Old Man and the Sea. In Ernest Hemingway's classic book, he takes an old fisherman and his sad story and resembles it to familiar stories in the Bible.
Just like Santiago suffered much as he was out at sea, so did Christ in his passion to get forgiveness for His people. Santiago also went forty days without catching a fish. In the Bible most things that went on for forty days were incidents of trials and suffering. Stories like; Noah going forty days and forty nights in his ark, Jesus getting tempted by the devil, and the wandering time the Israelites spent in the desert. Like Santiago, the majority of Jesus' disciples were fishermen. They all left what they were doing to come follow Christ. Overall, the symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea is significant and often when it comes to resemble stories from the Bible.
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I like the way you pointed out the number 40 in both Hemingway's story and the Biblical stories. Nice job showing the connection between stories/characters.
ReplyDeleteThe 40 days symbolism is strong, even more so since the old man is in a boat and so was Noah. Nicely done.
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