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The plots of The Old Man and the Sea are simple; parts of the description even go against nature, but its artistic achievements are enormous. In May 1953, the novel received the Pulitzer Prize and was specifically cited when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. The use of “iceberg theory” cannot be overlooked in this work which earned such unanimous praise from the industry and general public.
2. Literature Review
In addition to praising the Tough Guy image of the main character in The Old Man and the Sea, scholars and critics from all fields also study other aspects of the article. For example, judging from the authenticity of the content, some critics considered this novel as a documentary fishing record. They even called Hemingway the archbishop among zolaists (Baker, 1956: 289). But some scholars held the opposite view that the story loses contact with reality. Robert Weeks’ piece “Fakery in The Old Man and the Sea” presents his claim that the novel is a weak and unexpected pergence from the typical, realistic Hemingway (Weeks, 1962: 188). D’ Agostino also assessed the work in the perspective of tradition that the image of Santiago is “half-man and half-god”, which is totally incredible (qtd. Li Xiaolu, 1999: 87). 源:自/751-·论,文'网·www.751com.cn/
Besides, the implication of human’s fate in The Old Man and the Sea is another focus to study. Wirt Williams has appreciated The Old Man and the Sea from its tragic view; he put forward that the novel is an irony of the tragic fate of people and tells a story of a man’s whole life (Williams, 1981: 173). This point happened to coincide with Baker’s view that the old man’s experience somehow becomes an example of the experience of all people (qtd. Li Xiaolu, 1999, 87). In fact, we may easily conclude from the article that “fate” is rendered as “luck” in The Old Man and the Sea, like what R. W. B Lewis raised before, “the conflicts between ‘virtu and fortuna’ leads to the old man’s misfortune” (Lewis, 1953: 146). Meanwhile, the tragic color of The old man and the Sea penetrates not only the fate but also the Heroism reflected in this novel. Hemingway’s works are often related to the theme “death”. He wrote to his friend and expressed his own recognition of tragic heroism: even if those prominent figures were heading to the grave, they managed to do excellent performance on their way (Barnes, 1953: 7). The maintenance of human dignity and the fulfillment of the value of life are also the ideas of humanism, but the strong and untiring morality will finally extinct at the terminal point of life, and will never defeat the fate which is impossible to reverse in special times or under special circumstances. E. M. Halliday has once pointed out that Hemingway showed the readers practical ethics bravely blocked out by humans, although people are fully aware of the darkness at the end of life (Halliday, 1959: 299).
Compare with studies of the content, the major direction in literary field is researching the symbolism meaning of The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway once denied that he had used symbolism while writing The Old Man and the Sea; he wrote to his friend that what people had judged about symbolism was nonsense. But he also said: “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 (qtd. Wu Lao, 2003: 2).” Many people hold the opinion that the iceberg principle in The Old Man and the Sea is reflected through the manipulation of symbolism, but for my part, symbolism is only one of the methods to implement “iceberg theory”.
From my point of view, human language is inadequate to express everything, and for authors, it is unnecessary to write in a quite explicit way, because readers are able to understand their thoughts. The “iceberg theory” in the field of literature refers to a kind of writing technique: writers shape out clear images and put their feelings and emotions in those images with simple texts. The lines in articles often contain deeper levels and readers need to excavate by themselves. Laconic descriptions, vivid images, rich emotions and profound thoughts are four basic elements of “iceberg theory”.