19. American-literature-based-on-my-onw-experience

19. American literature based on my own experience

I would like to talk about the book The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway. I’ve chosen this book, because I read it last year and I think, things, that are mentioned in the book are still actual.

About the author

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer that was born in Illinois in 1899. When he was 18 years old, he fought as a volunteer in a war, where he was seriously hurt. Hemingway belongs to community known as "the Lost Generation", which was a generation of authors that went through the first war (f.r. Erich Remarque, Francis Scott Fitzgerald). For them was typical disagreement with society and imaging of soldier’s lives. Ernest Hemingway achieved a high popularity during his lifetime and received for his work the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Both of them were for his shortest novel and the last book “TOMADS”. Hemingway wrote this book in 1952 on Cuba, where is the main action situated. His inspirations were Cuban fishermen that he met. Because this island was his favorite place, he had there a house and several his books were situated to this island. He also used Spanish in this book. During his later life, he suffered from increasing his physical and mental problems and owing to these problems and his decreasing popularity he committed a suicide.

The old man and the sea

TOMATS is a novel that was written by an American author Ernest Hemingway.

The main character is poor Cuban fisherman Santiago that hasn’t caught anything for 84 days and as a result he has lost his apprentice Manolin. Manolin still takes care of him and brings him beer and food and talks with him about baseball.

On the eighty – five day he decides to catch the biggest fish in the Gulf Stream. He sails far out, sets his lines and waits for the big fish. The main plot is about the battle between the enormous marlin and the old man. This battle takes 2 days and 2 nights and in the end Santiago kills by harpoon the marlin and he’s returning with the fish to island. However on the way back he’s attacked by sharks that have lured blood of dead marlin. The fisherman is too much tired, so he can’t struggle with them, but he’s trying it with knife. The 5th day he’s arriving back to harbor, nevertheless he hasn’t got anything ‘cause the fish was eaten by the sharks. The remaining skeleton he leaves on the beach and goes to his shack. On the morning is around skeleton crowd of people that are admiring catch of the old fisherman.

Is this book actual?

I think that the problem of poor people that is mentioned in this book is very topical, ’cause poor people are everywhere and they trying to survive how they can. It’s also sometimes a vain effort without effect.

One of the things that are common for this book and our world is that fame is passing. One day you are popular and another nobody knows who you are. This example was also in the book because before several years Santiago was successful and famous fisherman.