This blog post focuses on how the hardboiled style of 『The Old Man and the Sea』 builds narrative tension and symbolic depth through short sentences and restrained expression.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway builds upon his earlier works not only in content and thematic aspects but also in form and style, simultaneously developing them in a unique way. Techniques such as the so-called ‘understatement’ method—condensing and restraining emotion based on the iceberg theory—the hardboiled style employing concise yet thrilling sentences, and the effective use of imagery and symbolism while firmly grounded in the realist tradition are hallmarks that define Hemingway’s literature. These characteristics are embodied more clearly than ever before in The Old Man and the Sea, where they shine brilliantly. This is precisely why William Faulkner, without reservation, hailed this work as Hemingway’s ‘greatest masterpiece’ and lavished praise upon it. Faulkner remarked about this work, “This time he has found God, the Creator.”
Hemingway used the iceberg metaphor to argue that a great novelist should not lavishly display emotion. Instead, like an iceberg, seven-eighths should remain submerged beneath the surface, revealing only one-eighth above the waterline, allowing readers to sense the depth of unseen emotion. Guided by this understanding, he frequently employed a narrative style that presented only the tip of the iceberg. This is precisely why the seemingly simple and unadorned sentences in his works feel far more suggestive and profound than their surface appearance suggests. This characteristic is readily apparent in The Old Man and the Sea. As mentioned earlier, this technique is clearly evident in the setup dividing the fishermen of the Havana fishing village into two groups based on their attitude toward nature. On the surface, it appears to be a simple distinction between fishermen who call the sea ‘La Mar’ and those who call it ‘El Mar’. However, it actually separates the fishermen based on their way of life, their view of nature, and, more profoundly, their differing worldviews.
Hemingway’s distinctive hardboiled style is also clearly evident throughout The Old Man and the Sea. He actively employs short, simple native words of Anglo-Saxon origin rather than long-syllable vocabulary derived from ancient Greek or Latin. In sentence construction, he avoids complex subordinate clauses linked by relative pronouns, favoring direct, clear short sentences or simple compound sentences whenever possible. His descriptive approach remains faithful to reality, creating a vividness that makes readers feel as if they are witnessing the scenes directly before their eyes. The hardboiled sentences Hemingway employs are extremely simple, devoid of any elements that could be called decoration, much like the shack where the protagonist Santiago lives. They feel almost sparse beyond simplicity, yet within that simplicity lies a powerful density. Hemingway once stated, “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. And the Baroque style of architecture is over.” True to his words, the style of this work is architecture, not ornate interior decoration. More specifically, it resembles modernist architecture reminiscent of New York’s Rockefeller Center building, rather than Baroque architecture like the Palace of Versailles. Just as modernist architecture prioritizes function over form, Hemingway’s style emphasizes functionality, leaving a powerful and intense impression.
“Finally, the old man lowered the mast and stood up. He picked up the mast again, slung it over his shoulder, and began to climb the road. He had to rest five times before he reached the shack.”
As this quotation confirms, Hemingway rarely uses compound sentences, preferring either short sentences or compound sentences linked by conjunctions. While this characteristic isn’t fully apparent in the translation, the original uses the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ only once in the first sentence, twice in the second sentence, and the subordinating conjunction ‘before’ just once in the third sentence.
Relative pronouns are nowhere to be found. Much like modernist architects constructing buildings solely with steel and glass, Hemingway uses these two conjunctions as his building blocks to construct sentence structures. In this respect, Hemingway stands in stark contrast to his contemporary, William Faulkner. Faulkner’s prose is long and complex, reminiscent of Baroque architecture, and rhetorically ornate to an extreme degree.
Hemingway’s development of this short, powerful style is deeply connected to his experience as a newspaper reporter before becoming a writer. Immediately after graduating high school in 1917, he abandoned college plans and took a job as a trainee reporter at the Kansas City Star. During this period, he is known to have undergone rigorous training adhering to the newspaper’s principles for writing articles. After serving in World War I, he moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1920 and briefly worked as a reporter for The Toronto Star. Later, even while studying writing in Paris, France, with a letter of recommendation from the literary giant Sherwood Anderson, he maintained his connection to journalism as a foreign correspondent. The core of newspaper articles is to convey facts objectively according to the five Ws and one H principle. Of course, this does not mean Hemingway simply wrote his novels like newspaper articles. He used the simplicity and robustness of journalistic style as a foundation, but by introducing imagery, symbols, and motifs, and adding appropriate rhetoric, he sometimes elevated his sentences to a poetic level. To draw an analogy from the title of German literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s autobiography, ‘Poetry and Truth,’ Hemingway did not choose between ‘truth’ and ‘poetry,’ but rather balanced his attention on both elements.
Given his effective yet restrained use of poetic devices and techniques within his novels, it is insufficient to define Hemingway solely as a naturalist or realist. Rather, he can be understood in some respects as a symbolist and an imagist. Of course, he repeatedly stated that he did not deliberately design symbols to insert into his work. Shortly after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, Hemingway stated in an interview with the American news magazine ‘Time’: “No great book was ever written with symbols in mind. I only tried to draw a real old man, a real boy, a real sea, real fish, and real sharks. But if you draw them faithfully, they will mean a great deal.” In his work, symbols and imagery are organically intertwined with the content and themes in an inseparable manner.
This approach is also evident in how he sets character names. For instance, the protagonist Santiago’s name is the Spanish translation of Saint James, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. James, son of Zebedee, was the brother of the Apostle John and is often called “the Greater” to distinguish him from another apostle of the same name. He worked as a fisherman on the shores of the Sea of Galilee when he met Jesus and was called, along with Peter and Andrew. According to the Gospel of Matthew, upon hearing Jesus’ call, they immediately left their boat and father to follow him. In paintings, James is often depicted on horseback, holding a pilgrim’s bell in one hand and a sword in the other, vanquishing Moors. He is also the patron saint of Spain, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. At the very least, as fishermen, Santiago and James share the same identity.
The name Manolin, who can be considered a faithful disciple following Santiago, is also significant. This name combines the Spanish word ‘mano’ (meaning shark) with ‘lin’ (meaning ‘to shine’), carrying the meaning ‘a dazzlingly beautiful shark’. On the surface, the shark—which devours the marlin Santiago risked his life to catch—might seem negative. Yet it actually functions as a name closely tied to the sea, granting strength and challenge to his mentor, Santiago. Santiago drinks a glass of shark liver oil daily from a large drum in the shack where fishermen store their gear. Shark liver oil was believed to be effective against colds and flu and beneficial for the eyes. In this sense, Manolin can be seen as performing a role similar to that of the shark liver oil, instilling strength and courage in Santiago.
The name of Martin, who runs a shop in the village and provides Santiago with meals like black-bean rice, fried bananas, and stew, is also no coincidence. Martin is derived from Saint Martin, a priest widely known for dedicating his life to the poor. Deeply compassionate and merciful, he lived a life of sharing his possessions with the needy. While stationed in Amiens, Gaul, during his military service, he encountered a beggar shivering in the bitter cold at the city gates, wearing almost nothing. Martin promptly removed his cloak, cut it in half with his sword, gave one half to the beggar, and kept the other half for himself. This half-cloak later became a relic kept by the kings of the Frankish Kingdom. The 16th-century Spanish painter El Greco’s ‘Saint Martin and the Beggar’ is a work that visually depicts this very story.
As already examined through the imagery of the lion and baseball, the most consistently recurring symbolic system in The Old Man and the Sea is Christian imagery and symbolism. Santiago is a figure reminiscent of Jesus Christ in many aspects. Particularly, the scene of fishing the marlin evokes the crucifixion of Christ. The scene where he pulls the fishing line with all his might, causing wounds on his palms from the pressure, is sufficiently evocative of the moment of being nailed to the cross. The cry Santiago utters during the attack by the sharks also recalls the cry of Christ suffering on the cross.
“Ah!” the old man cried out. This cry could not be translated into any other words. It was the kind of cry that bursts out unconsciously when a nail pierces the palm and drives into the plank.
This cry, which the narrator says cannot be expressed in other words, is rendered in the original text as the Spanish interjection ‘Ay’. This is an expression close to ‘Ah’ or ‘Oh’ in English, or ‘아!’ or ‘아이고!’ in Korean. Considering the description “when he felt the nails piercing his palms and driving into the plank,” it is clear that Hemingway had Christ’s crucifixion in mind for this scene. The scene where Santiago, after a three-day struggle, returns to port, shoulders the mast, and stumbles up the hill to his shack also overlaps with the image of Christ bearing the cross up Golgotha. Finally, his arrival at the shack, lying on the bed with arms outstretched, is sufficiently evocative of Christ suffering on the cross. Through these Christian symbols and imagery, Hemingway reveals Santiago’s suffering, sacrifice, and humility, presenting a heroic figure who transforms loss into gain, defeat into victory, and ultimately death into resurrection.
Finally, Hemingway experiments with narrative technique in The Old Man and the Sea to establish psychological distance. The work begins with the sentence, “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream,” and ends with, “The old man was dreaming of lions.” This structure, framing the novel’s beginning and end with an omniscient third-person viewpoint, clearly demonstrates the author’s intent to maintain a certain distance from the character. Even when describing events on land, the author relies on an objective, omniscient third-person viewpoint, as if reporting historical facts. In other words, Hemingway deeply empathizes with Santiago’s inner world while simultaneously maintaining a balanced perspective, observing him from a certain distance throughout. This narrative stance is precisely the core factor that elevates The Old Man and the Sea beyond a simple adventure tale or heroic saga, cementing it as a classic that universally contemplates the dignity and struggle of human existence.
