The Concept of Heroism in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

Abstract

The fundamental aim of this study is to analyze and evaluate the heroic features of Ernest Hemingway‘s work ―The Old Man and The Sea‖. Also, it attempts to detect traces of perseverance and heroism in the legendry writer Hemingway, concerned on the main reasons for which the author wrote his masterpiece novella, these factors come as a personal need for resolving psychological issues related to his situation on that age, as it was the most suitable solution to express his personal experience with the sea. In addition to that the chief focus of the present study is on the main character ―Santiago‖ who was psychologically suffering throughout the events of the novel, he was really confronted between two choices; whether to challenge the marlin or to give up in fishing and go back home. This study is based on an analytical thematic method based on extracting the main heroic events and analyzing them. On the whole, through this analytical study it has been deduced that Hemingway skillfully succeeded in portraying his parable character, who was incarnated by heroic features to the fullest.