Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ was born after 15 years of conception and writing. We examine how this masterpiece came into the world through its creative background and literary evaluation.
Ernest Hemingway began writing ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ in early 1951 while living near Havana, Cuba. He completed the first draft by late April that year and submitted the manuscript to Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York in March 1952. The work was serialized in the September 1, 1952, special issue of the newsweekly magazine Life. The magazine sold an astonishing 5.3 million copies within just two days of its release, demonstrating its immense popularity. Published as a book a week later, the novel immediately captured readers’ attention. The first printing ran 50,000 copies, and it remained on bestseller lists for six months. It was selected as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in May 1953, and also received the National Book Award for Fiction that same year. This work also significantly contributed to Hemingway finally becoming the fifth American author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Of course, the Nobel Prize in Literature is an honorary award recognizing an author’s overall artistic contribution to humanity, not an award given for a single work. Nevertheless, the Swedish Nobel Committee cited this work, stating it awarded the prize “for the remarkable achievements in the art of narrative in his most recent work ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ and for his influence on modern style.” The work’s great literary and commercial success cemented Hemingway’s reputation as an outstanding writer, recognized not only in American literary circles but worldwide.
However, Hemingway’s conception of ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ began a full fifteen years before its publication. In April 1936, he published an essay titled “Islands in the Stream” in the men’s monthly magazine Esquire. As hinted by its subtitle, ‘Letters from the Gulf Stream’, Hemingway was already conceiving a work centered on deep-sea fishing in the vast ocean. In this piece, a Cuban fisherman ventures far into the Gulf of Mexico, battles a marlin weighing several hundred kilograms, and finally catches it. However, on the way back to port, the marlin is lost to a pack of sharks, and the fisherman, nearly delirious, is found near the harbor by another fisherman. Written with just over 200 words, this essay, like the marlin after reaching port, is skeletal, lacking any particularly substantial narrative content.
Yet it goes without saying that this prose later became the cornerstone for Hemingway to build his work ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. In their basic framework, these two works bear a considerable resemblance. Whereas “Islands in the Stream” is nonfiction depicting the real experiences of Gregorio Fuentes, Hemingway’s fishing companion and helmsman of the boat ‘Pilar’, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ is a novel featuring the entirely fictional character Santiago. In other words, Hemingway fleshed out his nonfiction work, infused it with life, and ultimately gave birth to the artistic masterpiece ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. Originally, he had planned to use this work as the concluding section of ‘Islands in the Stream’, which was later published posthumously. One could say a quantum leap occurred between ‘Islands in the Stream’ and ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. Comparing these two works makes one realize anew that in literature, how something is said is far more important than what is said.
Hemingway’s publication of ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ in 1952 was a truly groundbreaking event in his literary life. After publishing ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1940), which dealt with the Spanish Civil War, he maintained a long silence for over a decade, failing to produce any notable work. Of course, ten years later he published the novel ‘Across the River and into the Trees’ (1950), but the response from critics and readers was decidedly cold. Critics and readers deemed it a complete failure, indulging in self-parody. Consequently, the notion that Hemingway’s creative energy had finally been exhausted spread widely among critics and scholars. Some critics even openly declared, “Papa’s (Hemingway’s nickname at the time) era has come to an end.”
Of course, Hemingway’s own assessment of ‘Across the River and into the Trees’ was entirely different. He insisted this work was the finest he had published to date. But no one listened. Writers often claim their least celebrated works are their greatest. Writers often create works from the unconscious, making them prone to misjudging their own creations. Sometimes, they declare a work outstanding simply because it was the most difficult to write and thus remains vivid in their memory. Other times, they do so for commercial reasons—to attract critics’ attention or boost sluggish sales. In Hemingway’s case, his own judgment was off the mark.
Thus, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ emerged from a situation where Hemingway faced what was almost a death sentence as a writer, making it all the more special to him. This work proved, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, that his creative power remained undiminished. Hemingway’s deep interest in ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ is also evident in a letter he sent to Charles Scribner, the publisher who released the novel. In a letter to him dated October 1951, Hemingway stated, “This novel is the prose work I have labored on throughout my life. It reads easily and simply, and seems short, but it contains all the dimensions of the visible world and the human soul. It is the finest work I can produce at this moment.” Yet this statement contains a truth entirely different from what he said about ‘Across the River and into the Trees’. A closer reading of ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ reveals that taking this statement at face value is not unreasonable.
‘The Old Man and the Sea’ received widespread acclaim from critics, fellow writers, and general readers immediately upon publication. For instance, William Faulkner, an American writer active during the same period, praised it highly, stating, “In time, it will be recognized as perhaps the finest work of our time.” Hemingway scholar Philip Young lavished praise, calling it “the finest single work in which Hemingway said what he had to say as effectively as he could possibly have said it.” However, by the 1960s, evaluations of the work began to shift slightly. A mood emerged to move beyond the initial praise and assess it more objectively.
This shift in evaluation likely stemmed from changing literary trends and evolving reader tastes. Critics who began to question ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ primarily belonged to the realist school. They pointed out that unlike Hemingway’s previous works rooted in the realist tradition, this novel depicted an unrealistic experience detached from reality and contained a considerable amount of sentimentality.
For example, critics like Robert Weeks pointed out that the protagonist Santiago’s three-day, solitary struggle with a marlin weighing hundreds of kilograms in the open sea was far removed from actual reality. They argue that such a task would be difficult even for a vigorous young fisherman, let alone an old man like Santiago. Other critics also point out inaccuracies in Hemingway’s descriptions when compared to objective facts. For instance, Hemingway describes the mako shark: “Inside the double lips were eight rows of teeth set at an angle inward. Unlike most sharks, they were not pyramid-shaped.” However, critics argue that no matter how powerful and threatening a mako shark is, claiming it has eight rows of teeth is simply absurd.
This inaccuracy extends to his mention of the star Rigel. In the work, Hemingway writes, “The first stars appeared. He didn’t know the name ‘Rigel,’ but he knew that seeing that star meant many more would soon appear.” Yet Rigel, part of the Orion constellation, is not the first star to appear as night falls. Furthermore, some critics point out that the Spanish occasionally used by Hemingway in this work is overly literal or phonetic, rather than the natural colloquial speech used by Cubans in everyday life.
