Old Man and the Sea- Style

One of the things I really liked about this book is the style the author uses. I would describe it is sort of wandering around from idea to idea while the old man is fishing, Even before he goes out fishing it seems like the old man's thoughts are always moving from one thing to another. All of the changes it train of thought helped to make the book so interesting.

When the old man is talking to the boy after their dinner the conversation changes direction quite a bit and very often. They go from talking about baseball, to baseball players, to Africa, and then back to baseball players (Hemingway 16). These changes in the conversation are in the same style as the old man's thoughts. They change a little bit on one subject, then jump to a different subject that has little to do with the first. My examle of this is when the old man is thinking of Portugese men-o-war. He starts off thinking of how horrible they are and how much he dislikes them, to how he loves turtles (Hemingway 22). The thought about turtles is still relevant because the old man was thinking of how he loved to see the turtles eating the men-o-war, but still does not have much to do with the origional topic. Because of this the story is more interesting to me when the old man is thinking than when he is fishing.

The other example of how the style keeps the story moving is how the old man's thoughts are put in between updates of what he is doing while fishing. For instance, after four hours of being pulled by the fish, he starts to get uncomfortable. After this is mentioned, the old man starts to think about how big the fish must be. The book talks about what the old man did that night, and then the old man thinks about his situation (Hemingway 26-27). This keeps the story from being a monotonous series of actions and descriptions. When the old man is trying to pull the fish in, the events are mentioned followed by the old mans thoughts (Hmingway 43-45). All of the wandering and changing in the narration makes the book much more interesting.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.