Choose ONE of the following six prompts:
- Write about the relationship between the old man and the boy. What binds them? What separates them? Are they like family? How or how not? How does
the relationship change, complicate, or deepen in the course of the novel? Point to at least five different scenes from across the novel that can help illustrate
the nature of their relationship. - Write an essay about two of the “escapes” in the old man’s life: the lions about which he dreams and the baseball which he discusses with the boy. What
role do they serve in the story? What do these two things tell us about the old man’s character? How do they relate to his actual experience fishing on the
boat? How and why are they significant? Point to specific textual evidence to make your case about how and why these two elements are significant. - Write about the fishing itself. Why does Hemingway spend so much time describing the physical details of the fishing—from the line, to the bait, to the fish
in the water? What do you make of the times in the novel that Santiago talks to the fish? Are the fish symbolic of something greater, are they simply fish, or
are they both? Be sure to spend time thinking specifically about the big fish that the old man reels in at the near the end of the novel. - Examine the relationship between humankind and nature in “The Old Man and the Sea.” To do this, think about how the characters in the book interact with
the elements—the sea and the sky and weather—as well as how they interact with the animal life, like fish and sharks and dolphins and turtles and birds. Is
the view that emerges of the relationship between man and nature positive, negative, or somewhere in between? Point to at least five different interactions
that illustrate the relationship between humankind and nature. - Do a character study of the old man. What are his physical characteristics? What’s his attitude like? How would you describe his economic situation? If you
were to describe his philosophy of life, what would it be? Pick at least five scenes throughout the book that in some way illustrate his character. Finally,
imagine him in a modern, American job—something other than fishing. What profession might he be in, and what kind of worker do you think he’d be? - Much of the book takes place on Santiago’s boat—but the opening pages and the closing pages are set, instead, on the shore. What happens during these
bookends? How does the opening chapter establish a world that allows us to make sense of the fishing scenes, and how does the closing chapter cause us
to re-evaluate and analyze the fishing scenes? Another way of thinking about this is to ask the question: What is the old man’s life like away from the sea?
What about the boy’s life?
BONUS perhaps: Do you find any instance of epiphany in this novel? Hemingway says that his writing is like an iceberg–with only 1/8th showing on the
surface. What information did you discover that was under the surface?
