'The Old Man and theSea' as a tragedy

                        The criteria or tests of a Tragedy

                        While the critics disagree as to whether The Old Man and the Sea is a tragedy or not it should not be difficult for the average reader to settle the problem. Because the average reader is not to be led by subtleties or by abstruse considerations. If we apply the age old tests to this novel, we shall certainly conclude that it is a tragedy. A tragedy is a tale of exceptional suffering leading generally but not always to the death of the chief protagonist or the hero. The hero is generally possessed of certain admirable qualities but he is not perfect: in fact he suffers from a fault or flaw which precipitates its downfall although this downfall is brought about by certain other causes too- the villainy of human beings, chance, accident or the working of an arbitrary fate. The admirable qualities of the hero must include an exceptional capacity to suffer, or the power of endurance much above that of ordinary people. The tragic hero may perish but his spirit is not broken or crushed. The sufferings and the fate of the hero generally arouse strong feelings of pity and fear, while his manner of enduring his sufferings and his fate arouse our admiration and respect for him. Finally, a tragedy should give rise to a sense of a moral order in the universe and not of chaos or moral lawlessness or a dominance of the forces of disorder and darkness.

                       "The Old Man and the Sea" a Tragedy

                           'The Old Man and the Sea' fulfils most of these criteria of the tragedy. It is true that Hemingway in his earlier novel shows himself to be more or less a nihilist, a man who find the universe to be governed by arbitrary forces and who depicts man as alienated from society and as suffering grieving losses without rhyme or reason. But 'The Old Man and the Sea' is different, different as regards the universe it depicts and as regards its hero. Santiago the old fisherman does not carry an old wound from the past as Jake Barnes do in "The Sun Also Rises". 

                           Santiago, a superb craftsman

                             Throughout the novel Santiago is given heroic proportions. The boy Manolin calls him the best fisherman adding "There are many good fisherman and some great ones. But there is only you". Santiago calls himself "a strange old man" with strength enough for a truly big fish, knowing many tricks and having resolution, and he actually gives evidence of all these qualities afterwards. He is not an ordinary fisherman but a superb craftsman who knows his business thoroughly and always practices it with great skill. He keeps his fishing lines straight where others allow them to drift with the current. Luck is welcome but he believes in exactness.

                           Daring more than others

                           Santiago is the clearest representation of the hero because he is the only major character in Hemingway who has not been permanently wounded or disillusioned. To be a hero means to dare more than other men; to expose oneself to greater dangers, and therefore more greatly to risk the possibilities of defeat and death. On the eighty-fifth day Santiago rows far beyond the customary fishing area and he hooks a huge marlin.

                     Santiago's Suffering and his power of endurance

                          The account of Santiago's Struggle with the marlin has a tragic quality because of the suffering that Santiago undergoes, because of the suffering of the marlin, and because of the endurance of both the fish and the fisherman. Our admiration and our pity are aroused foe both for Santiago and for the marlin. From the very first Santiago shows determination. "Fish", he says, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead". Next, he says, "Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends". His left hand becomes cramped, and the marlin proves to be bigger than he had thought it to be. He wishes to show to the marlin what sort of man he is, "But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures". He admires the manner of the marlin's behavior and its great dignity. He has had no sleep for half a day and a night and another day. It would be good even if he could sleep "twenty minutes or half an hour". His hands have now been badly cut and he is "tired deep into his bones". He feels that the fish is killing him but he dos not mind. "Come on and kill me", he says, "I do not care who kills who". His pride is by now gone. The fish, in spite of the agony it is undergoing, has proved obstinate and tough. When the fish has been killed, there come the sharks to eat it. Santiago has hardly enjoyed his feeling of victory when the first shark, a  Mako, appears. He drives his harpoon into the shark's brain "with resolution and complete malignancy". Here he also speaks those memorable words: "But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated." He know he has performed another heroic act. "I Wonder how the great Di Maggio would have liked the way I hit him in the brain?" he sys with reference to his killing the Mako. Then come the two galanos and Santiago says "Ay" a word which a man might utters if nails were driven through his palms and into the wood. This image of the crucifixion is intended to convey the agony of Santiago. When the thoughts come to him that more sharks might come in the night, he says, "I'll fight them until I die". But by midnight he knows that the fight is useless. He knows that he is now beaten finally and is without remedy. His journey up the hill to his shack and his posture as he lies asleep on his bed are again described in terms reminiscent of the crucifixion, to emphasize his suffering and his endurance. When he tells the boy that he has been beaten by the adversary, the marlin and Santiago agrees. "No Truly. It was afterwards". He is not averse to talking with the boy about future plans and when he falls asleep again he dreams about the lions. Santiago's heroic quality does not forsake him till the end. Throughout, his ordeal and his attitude of mind are so described as to arouse our admiration and our pity for him. And as the marlin shows precisely  the qualities which Santiago has, we pity and admire the marlin too. Thus both man and fish are tragic characters. The man returns home physically broken, though spiritually still strong, while the fish is reduced to skeleton which yet produces a feeling awe in all those who see it. Apart from his courage and endurance, other qualities which make Santiago admirable our eyes and his tenderness, compassion and love for various creatures (birds, porpoise, flying fish, green turtles, hawks bills, etc), his charity his faith and his piety. 

                        The conflict in Santiago's mind

                     Like most tragic heroes, Santiago experiences what he called an inner conflict. Having killed the marlin, he asks himself whether he has committed a sin. Yes, it was a sin even though he killed the marlin to keep himself alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. "Do not think about sin", he tells himself, and yet keeps thinking about sin. He killed the fish not only to keep alive and to feed others but for pride and because he is a fisherman. Yet  it was not a sin because he loved the marlin when it was alive and he loved it afterwards.

                              The fault or flaw in Santiago

                     Santiago is perfectly conscious of the transgression which has brought a disaster for him. He realizes that he went too far out, that he went "beyond all people in the world". Hemingway seems to be saying that man, in his individualism, his pride and his need, inevitably goes beyond his true place in the world and thereby brings violence and destruction on himself and on others. "I am sorry that I went too far out. I ruined us both", says Santiago to its mutilated marlin. "You violated your luck when too went too far outside", he says to himself. Finally, when he asks himself: "What beat you? " the answer is "Nothing.I went out too far." Yet is going out too far and alone, Santiago has found his greatest strength and courage and dignity and nobility and love; and in this he expresses Hemingway's view of the ultimate tragic irony of man's fate, namely, that only through the isolated individualism and the pride which drive him beyond his true place in life does man develop the qualities and the wisdom which teach him the sin of such individualism and pride, and which bring him the deepest understanding  of himself and of his place in the world. Thus in accepting the world for what it is and in learning to live in it. Hemingway has achieved a tragic but ennobling vision of man which is in the tradition of Sophocles, Melville,and Conrad.

                           Resemblance with Classical Tragedy

                        The Old Man and the Sea is a remarkable tale of courage, endurance pride, humility and death. It is classical not only technically, in its narrow confines, the purity of its design, and even in the fatal flaw. It is much in the spirit of Greek tragedies in which men fight against great odds and win moral victories. It is especially like Greek tragedy in that, as the hero fails and falls, we get an unforgettable glimpse of what stature a man may achieve.

                                          Conclusion

                       This novel takes us into a world which has to some extent recovered from the gaping wounds that made it so frightening a place in Hemingway's early stories. The Old Man and the Sea is surely a tragedy, though this tragedy is no longer bleak and accidental; this tragedy is purposive. This sense of purposiveness makes its appearance in Hemingway's philosophy for the first time and distinguishes this book  from the earlier tragedies.