Death Ritual in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea
Tianzhong Deng
(Hangzhou Normal University, China )
Introduction
Hemingway, who has “sought death all his life”(Friedman 1995: 175)1in his
writing has created many elderly characters, from minor characters such as Count
Mippipopolous in The Sun Also Rises and Count Greffi in A Farewell to Arms, to
major characters developed in “Old Man at the Bridge”, “A Clean, Well-Lighted
Place”, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway’s
presentation of aged characters has undergone a chronological development, which
displays a clear corollary to his “preoccupation with death” (Spilka 2002: 44 notes).
For Old Santiago specifically, death has become “a familiar, integral not to history's
larger destructive events but to quotidian reality.” (Friedman 1995: 175)
In this paper, I hope to argue that the Old Man in The Old Man and the Sea ,
though appearing to have little to do with death or dying, is in fact carrying out his
death ritual by going into the deep sea.
I
Hemingway’s old characters, or more specifically, his characterisation of their
old age, is closely related to his deep concern with death. It is not surprising for
Hemingway to overindulge in his thematic fondness of death and to assume that to
“die well” is the only humane choice of death that is “quick, clean, and brave”
(Comley 1979). Based on Halliday’s conclusion that “dying well is for Hemingway
the crucial corollary for living well” (Halliday 1956), we can see that Hemingway’s
depiction of the aged life, especially the courage and patience to face the impending
darkness of death, reveals this “corollary”.
Chronologically there appear to be three distinct phases observed with
Hemingway’s aged characters. The first phase is illustrated with both Count
Mippimopolous (The Sun Also Rises, 1926) and Count Greffi (A Farewell to Arms,
1929) where they are portrayed as symbols of death. At this time Hemingway, in his
late twenties to early thirties, was developing an awareness of death no doubt
exacerbated due to his experiences during the Great War.
The second phase follows in the 1930s where Hemingway begins to treat the
aged characters as distorted and non-reflective mirrors of death for those who happen
to stand before and to ponder the meaning of life, in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
(1933) and “Old Man at the Bridge” (1938).
Finally, in the third phase, Hemingway in mid-life has started to develop his
aged characters in more depth where they contemplate their own understanding of
death and life. Thus, old age becomes an active search for a clean and meaningful
death, as illustrated in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1941) and The Old Man and the Sea
(1952).
In the Old Man and the Sea, the association of death with old age is not so direct
as we can read in his early writings. But under close scrutiny, we can still come to this
1 Friedman, Alan Warren,Fictional death and the modernist enterprise,1995 Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press
association. The old man is on the verge of death and he is portrayed as death
embodied in fighting the big fish of dignity. As Bakker rightly points out,
With Santiago, however, we have moved into the realm of myth-making, ….
Even death has ceased to be of importance. What counts is the act that
brings it about (Bakker 1983:136).
In order to achieve this effect of bringing about the death of the old man,
Hemingway deprives him of the most important things in life, physical, mental and
emotional, including his name, sexuality, language, and material possessions.
“The old man” is a “dead man” that does not need a name. The act of ‘naming’
is an important literary tool that a writer may choose to employ in a narrative. Clearly
Hemingway has given considerable thought to the names of his elderly characters in
which various symbolic meanings are embedded (Stoltzfus 1996:54). Hemingway
also chooses to “un-name” his characters by simply providing the aged characters
with a generic name “the old man” as in “The Old Man at the Bridge” and “A Clean,
Well-Lighted Place”. Since generic names like “the old man” carry a strong sense of
identity, the bearer of the name is obliged to fulfill that identity. Hemingway goes on
to use “the old man” to label the elderly fisherman through a “de-naming act” which
is slightly different from the re-naming or un-naming act (i.e. a character without a
name). Whilst naming and un-naming can occur outside the text, renaming a character
usually happens within the text when a new name is used to replace a previous name.
In the story, most of the time the narrator refers to the protagonist as “the old
man” by making use of the everyday words “the” , “old” and “man”, which appears
clumsy and incapable of referring to a specific person. Hemingway takes the trouble
to tell his reader that this old fisherman once had a name with a title. At that time he
was not “an old man then but [is] Santiago El Campeon” (68) because after he wins a
hand game with a negro player, “everyone call(s) him The Champion” (ibid:69).
In literature, a personal name is not just a word or a symbol. On the contrary, it
is an identity. Granted, there are great similarities between two identities denoted by
the two names, “Santiago” and “the old man”, however, they are two completely
different people in one character.
To equate being old with being dead is further shown in this novel by the Old
Man’s other losses. A dead man is not in a position to possess anything. He has lost
his wife, his “home”—now only a shackle and a small boat are left to him, should that
be called a home. He also has lost the functioning of most of his organs, including his
hands.
The only things remaining that bear some association with life are his eyes.
“Everything about him was old except his eyes” (Hemingway 1952: 6), and to
emphasize his equation of “old” age being equal to “death”, Hemingway goes on to
stress that “The old man's head was very old though and with his eyes closed there
was no life in his face” (ibid: 15). In other words, the old man is “dead” except for his
eyes.
In his struggle with the marlin, the old man also struggles to maintain his
vision: “For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the
sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead. He was not
afraid of the black spots” (ibid: 86). Black spots, like the darkness, are a symbol of
death.
Hemingway follows the Western literary tradition to “associate death with love,
Thanatos with Eros” (Ariès 1974:57). He robs the Old Man of sexuality as an
indicator of the coming of death in old age. Santiago, the Old Man, represents what
Silverman refers to as “the incommensurability of penis and phallus” (Silverman
1992: 63) presumably caused by his old age. “He urinated outside the shack and then
went up the road to wake the boy” (Hemingway 1952 :22) This casual mention of a
biological function directly related to his biological penis seems to exclude any
possible reference to a socially sexual inference. The old man has learned to accept
the loss due to chronological “dislocation” of “penis from phallus” (Silverman 1992:
47) through age. In his world there is no more room for sex, or for the phallic organ.
Only the penis as a urinating organ remains.
The Old Man loves the sea, treating it as his lover; however, he does not intend
to, or cannot, lay any sexual claim upon the sea as his lover. Quite the opposite, in his
aged impotence, he seemingly views his lover making love with other things: “Just
before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and
swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a
yellow blanket” (ibid:71).
The Old Man’s seemingly voyeuristic association with the sea suggests, on the
one hand, his impotence and, on the other, a pure, unconditional platonic love that is
not dependent on sexual libido. The age-related natural loss of erotic drive predicates
his impending death; however, the Old Man as a willing witness to his lover’s lovemaking suggests his acceptance of the loss, and death.
Death undoutedly is a lonely process. “No one should be alone in their old age,
he thought. But it is unavoidable”, the unavoidable loneliness in old age is same as
death.
With all the above listed textual evidences converging to the effect that old age
is death, the Old Man differs significantly from Hemingway’s previous aged character
in that the Old Man is not a dead man but a dying old man who can still make his own
choices. What he chooses to do is ritualize his death process.
II
To ritualize death is to avert the natural course of life by adding symbolic
meaning to this natural course in much more difficult and complex, expensive and
elaborate ways. The big fish and the Old Man share their understanding of a worthy
life and death. The Old Man understands that the fish also chooses to meet him there
to avoid “all people in the world”: “Now we are joined together and have been since
noon. And no one to help either one of us.”
He clearly knows he is going to die, due to his old age. He can choose a
meaningful and worthy death. He loves the grand fish. And only in a ritualized
situation can the old man afford to kill the fish that he loves and respect. “ ‘Fish,’ he
said, ‘I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day
ends.’”
The killing of the fish is also the killing act of himself. He has a strong intention
to identify with the fish that is a brother and friend. In his prayer, he refers to death
twice, “at the hour of our death,”( ) “Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish.
Wonderful though he is.”( ) He is praying for his own death, most desirably quick and
clean. He believes to die at the hand of the fish is a worthy death: "You are killing me,
fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or
more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill
me. I do not care who kills who." It so seems that death is only way of the integration
of the fish and the Old Man into one identity of sublimity with the greatness and
beauty. Life is dirty and painful. but life can be graceful, especially in a ritualized
form, to “suffer like a man. Or a fish".
The real performance of the ritual begins with the circle of the fish after being
hooked. It so seems that the dying fish is also performing its death ritual by circling
around the old man's boat. The Old Man has preparing this circling ritual for some
time. Repeatedly, he reminds himself for the coming of the circle. "But soon he has to
circle." " Soon he will have to circle", The old man reads the circling of the fish as the
final fight for life: "Let him begin to circle and let the fight come."
After the circling is the jump that makes the Old Man sweating " from
something else besides the sun. " With the flowing of sweat not from the sun the Old
Man is running the remaining energy of life. The fight against the fish is exhausting
his life.
The narrator is trying to carry out the ritual repetition in his words by using
short and high-pitiched sounds like "long, deep, wide, silver". With all his pain that he
is experiencing, the Old Man’s suffering does not come to its end. Life just lingers on
with a residue entrope of energy. Hemingway is depicting an imagined natural death
of suffering and struggling that negates the imagined tranquility of natural death, at
immediately at the moment when the fire of life sinks.
The real climax of this dying ritual comes with the killing of the fish. "The old
man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon as high as he could
and drove it down with all his strength”, parodoxically and symbolically, after the Old
Man has used up “all” his energy, he can still summon “more strength” to drive the
harpoon “into the fish’s side just behind the great chest fin”. He can feel the iron go
in, but the fish does not die right there:"Then the fish came alive, with his death in
him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his
power and his beauty”. The fishes dies finally when everything needing showing has
been shown, the fish dies.
And the Old Man is also at the verge of his death. In his old age, he is alive
with death within. He kills the fish that “is beautiful and noble and knows no fear of
anything” “in self-defense,” and important of all, he believes he has killed the fish
“well”.
In the western tradition, a death ritual was designed and performed by the
dying person who has developed an acute awareness of his impending death. A ritual
may be defined as a process that 'involves the change of a person's status while
relating that person to the supernatural' (Gluckman 1965:251), Life ritual "makes one
free from the anxiety"( Das 2005: 253 ). "Death became the occasion when man was
most able to reach an awareness of himself"( Ariès 1974:46), predicating that death as
the final phase of life contributes significantly to the understanding of life and the
self. Death is thus not a static moment that people and the culture can afford to ignore.
It is the time of revelation.
The old man’s dying ritual is well-timed. He has undergone 84-day preparation
before his final encounter with the fish. For this prepartion, the dying Old Man is now
at solemn fasting; he almost takes in nothing except liquid: “For a long time now
eating had bored him and he never carried a lunch. He had a bottle of water in the
bow of the skiff and that was all he needed for the day”. Later on, he eats some raw
fish (79), just enough to give him energy to complete the ritual of death —to catch the
big marlin and to burn himself out, speeding up the last phase of life in an active and
meaningful way.
A ritual requires symbols. The Old Man turns the objects and signs into
symbols: the sea is la mar, the fish is a brother and friend—“He is my brother” “The
fish is my friend too”, the lions in the dream is young cat-like and is the future of his
life.
Hemingway’s interpretation of “dying well” to counterbalance any negativity of
death has evolved to the point that death is not the ending of life, but rather, a starting
point of a new life cycle.
In addition, the Old Man embraces his death voluntarily and this is reinforced
with his death ritual scene in the boy’s presence. When he finally struggles to get to
his shabby shackle, in his sleep, the Old Man has dreams. Among the few things left
in his dream are the lions. “I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the
lions, he thought” (ibid: 64-65). We can interpret his thinking in this way: I wish the
fish would die and I could die and let the new life begin.
The young cat-like lions, as interpreted by critics, represent the old man’s “wish
for a cat [that] may even represent a desire for a child” (Curnutt 2000: 89). The child,
as the boy Manolin, is the new cycle of life, the embodiment of the skills, the
understanding of life and life-long experience of the sea that the old man hopes the
boy will inherit from him.
With the eyes closed, the subject is then dead. When the Old Man does not
move, his eyes are the last remaining traces of his life. And when his eyes are finally
closed, there will be no life about him. Sleep has always been Hemingway’s metaphor
for death, and the novella ends with the old man’s dreaming of the lions as the interval
between this sleep and death itself:
Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still
sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old
man was dreaming about the lions. (Hemingway 1952:127)
This symbolic death scene with the old man dreaming of the beginning of
new life, and the young generation witnessing the ending of life is the starting
point of a new life. This dream of lions links death and life. Dream is the event
horizon before the subject enters into the singularity of the ‘black hole’ of death,
and thus, it links death with life. The lion is the boy that embodies the new cycle
of life. Life cannot be separated from death, and death encompasses life. At his
deathbed, a new life cycle of cat-like young lions begins. His contest with the fish
is the culmination of his active life course.
Conclusion
The modernist conclusion ‘the absence of God’ drives Hemingway to create his
own belief system essential in old age, that is, an acceptance of death that completes
the inevitable cycle of life. He advocates the doctrine of a full and active life right up
until the very last minute. This is a formidable challenge because people tend to allow
life to lead them rather than to actively direct the course of their life.
From the Old Man’s dying ritual there are gerontological implications. In
old age when a decent natural death is beyond the reach, people might choose
suicide or seemingly better, euthanasia. Hemingway is suggesting that there are
active ways of burning the remaining energy of life by ritualizing death.
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