Q1 Blog 4: Jaws

In the final quarter of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, a plot twist occurs, unless the reader thought about the situation leading up to it logically to infer what should happen (which this reader did not do). The boat is approached by several groups of sharks, attracted by the cloud of blood being trailed by the swordfish corpse that was tethered to the side of the skiff, as it was too large to fit on the boat. It seems like this should have been expected, as tying what is essentially a free meal for sharks onto the outside of a boat will probably look pretty appetizing to and therefore attract sharks. The sharks were fought off by the old man, but with each new shark he began to tire and run out of weapons. When he finally staved off the last shark with a broken tiller, they had taken their toll on the swordfish's corpse, which was now just a head and a skeleton. He reached the port of Havana from which he had departed several days prior, and headed back home, collapsing several times on the way and continually muttering that it was his fault for sailing out too far. "And what beat you, he thought. 'Nothing,' he said aloud. 'I went out too far.'" This quotation displays the old man's dejection and self-blaming. He also seems accepting of his failure to think soundly under the pressure of catching this one fish. In the end of the story,the old man returns home with nothing to show for it but a fish skeleton that soon washes back out to sea. Although some people are glad he has returned safely and are impressed by the immensity of the skeleton he brought back, I felt that too little changed from the beginning to the end and that it was a little disappointing. I expected an ending with more closure or more change, just because it seems like the old man gained nothing but the experience. Perhaps the lack of change is reminiscent of the fickle nature of the sea with her ebb and flow of waves that wash things onto the shore and quickly take them back. The ending also shows how life always goes on; fishermen will hook great catches, sharks will eat fish, and great trials will be endured, but life must continue. So the old man continues to his life after enduring this ordeal.

Q1 Blog 3: Frenemies

In the third quarter of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, the old man finally vanquishes his foe and brother. An important quotation from this section was, "'The fish is my friend too,' he said aloud. 'I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him.'" This quotation, spoken aloud by the old man to himself, reflects the theme of duality because he refers to the fish as both his friend and his targeted victim. He is conflicted between viewing the majestic beast as a brother with whom he has spent the last few days, and viewing him as a trophy that must be attained through ending its life. Some other quotations soon after are, "There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great dignity," and, "It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers." These quotations further display the old man's feelings that the fish is a great being, superior to humans in some aspects, and that it is very difficult to end the life of our brother animals. After much fighting by both parties, the man harpoons the fish and brings him alongside the skiff. In the struggle, the old man begins to feel faint from exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and his wounds; however, he continues to push through the pain, knowing that he has to kill the fish, or it will beat him. As he sees the vibrant and beautiful colors fade from the scales of the swordfish, he tries to reassure himself that he did what had to be done. Having accomplished the task he had been working at for days, the old man finds everything to be somewhat surreal and dreamlike, as the fact that his eighty four day long dry spell has come to an end with the capture of a fifteen hundred pound fish seems incredible. I can relate to this because when I accomplish something grand that I have been working on for a long time, like a research paper or other project, it feels surreal because all I have known for the past couple of days has been this project. Suddenly being able to stop worrying about it seems so foreign in comparison, until something snaps me back to ensure this is reality, just like how the old man's wounds, aches, and trophy reassure the reality of his triumph.

Q1 Blog 2: Waiting

In the second quarter of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, the old man finally gets a large fish to take the bait at around noontime. He attempts to pull it in, but noticing that the fish will not budge from its own course, he decides to wait until the fish tires and surfaces. During the night, the old man begins to pity the fish caught on his hook and remember another time he felt bad when he caught a female marlin as the male watched. This pity is demonstrated in the quotation "He is wonderful and strange and who knows how old he is, he thought," which serves the novel by humanizing the fish and showing how the old man's attitude toward it develops. Throughout the rest of the quarter, he just waits for the fish to jump so that he can pull it onto the boat, but the fish continues to swim, dragging the old man and his skiff away from the port. This whole section does not seem to advance the plot very much, if at all. The old man does several not important things, like shifting the weight of the line and washing his hands, so nothing really affected the situation of the plot. The long, drawn out, monotonous wait instead serves to mirror and exemplify the old man's perseverance and steadfastness in a time of apparent hopelessness. Also, the vivid language used to describe the somewhat unimportant actions helps to put the reader in the place of the old man. Because of the imagery, the reader feels as if he or she is in the skiff with the old man, feeling each long hour that the fish swims beneath the water, out of reach of being caught. This emphasized the old man's pride and the theme of suffering and struggling. Eventually the fish does jump and the old man sees how big and majestic it is. He feels a slight pang of remorse in hooking it, but also strong determination that he would kill it. This became the old man's sole focus, as he puts killing this fish before his own health and well-being. This blind determination kind of surprised me, because as an experienced fisherman, he should know that having a sound mind and body is essential for survival and fishing. I feel like he should have fed himself, rested, and tended to his wounds more carefully than he did. However, his primary focus also made sense because of the way his mind is latching onto this one ray of hope after several months of nothing; in his mind, this is the only way for the old man to stay a true fisherman.

Q1 Blog 1: La Mar

After a bit of switching around after noticing I can't find the book I was originally reading, I settled on The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, because it was visible on my desk looked like a good read.

In the first quarter of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, the story is established. The old man, who has gone eighty four days without catching any fish, sets out for the eighty fifth day after speaking with the boy, his former fishing partner who was forced by his father to quit after the old man's unlucky streak. The character of the old man is very wise, optimistic, and experienced. He seems to know that good things don't always come to the skilled and experienced. Sometimes things just require luck and patience for things to start going one's way. The boy has a very close relationship with the old man, as he trained the boy on his fishing ship since he was five. I thought it was interesting how the story has no divisions or chapters; it's all uninterrupted paragraphs. It makes it a little difficult to read because there are no spots to take a break and think over what just happened. However, the structure seems the reflect the monotony of the eight four day bad luck streak and the long trip to finally catch a fish. Near the end of the first quarter of the story, the old man spots a Portuguese man of war jellyfish. He admires the "iridescent bubbles" but curses their double nature, calling the one he sees a "whore."  They are "the falsest things in the sea," as their beauty is contrasted by their deadly tentacles, and he enjoys watching them being eating by the sea turtles. The fact that he uses a female term to describe it parallels the custom of uses the feminine term "la mar" to refer to the sea as a female. Both the sea and the jellyfish have great beauty and terrible danger hidden within them, just how some considered females at the time. This theme of duality seems to be present throughout the book so far. A quotation from this section about la mar's duality was, "But the old man always thought of her [the sea] as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought." This is important to the book as a whole because it describes the duality and capriciousness of the sea. The quarter ends with a tug on one of the fishing lines, possibly marking the end of the old man's eighty four days without fish.