How Does Hemingway Present Santiago As A Religious Figure

Mark Twain once said that “age is an issue of mind over matter.” The protagonist of Ernest Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, fights against aging. While he chases his great white whale, a marlin of legendary proportions, Santiago repeatedly ignores his failing body. Hemingway also uses Santiago’s agony to represent Christ and the struggles He suffered. The motifs of religion and the fight against aging are prevalent in the novella The Old Man and the Sea.

Hemingway depicts Santiago as Christ-like figure. Santiago hurt the palm of his hand and watched the blood trail away; this visual imagery represents the blood that poured from Christ’s palms as he was crucified. Santiago groaned like a “nail [was] going through his hands and into the wood” (Hemingway) because like Christ felt the pain of sinners in Calvary, he felt the

He must fight through the weakness and pain to reverse his luck and restore his reputation. Santiago is a once great fisher down on his luck. He knows that he bag a great fish to restore his reputation. Santiago fights because he believes in the old ways of fishing and jas true skill; he feels pressured by the younger fishermen who “used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats” (Hemingway) and wants to catch a fish to prove that the old ways are better than the new fangled contraptions. Santiago refuses to believe that the effects of aging would prevent him from catching any great fish; he “had seen many [fish] that weighed more than a thousand pounds and had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone” (Hemingway) and never as an old man. By catching such a rare find at an old age, Santiago cemented his reputation as a great fisherman. Santiago dreams “about the lions” (Hemingway). He says that the lions were slow but powerful; they symbolize Santiago because he may be old but he can fight the effects of aging enough to be a formidable