The Old Man and the Sea

by Ernest Hemingway

[jamiereadthis]

I would just like to take this moment and vindicate myself on every protest I raised circa high school English, 1999. Hemingway himself, on symbolism, 1952:

“There isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks, no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.”

And also, Hemingway on symbolism again:

“No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in,” says Hemingway. “That kind of symbol sticks out like raisins in raisin bread. Raisin bread is all right, but plain bread is better.” He opens two bottles of beer and continues: “I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. The hardest thing is to make something really true and sometimes truer than true.”

Everyone should automatically be forgiven the beliefs and opinions they hold at 16— but sometimes, and maybe just by sheer luck of the odds, your 16-year-old-self will have gotten some things right. High five.