The Presence of Symbols in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” (Comparative-introspective Analysis)

Abstract

Key words: expressive means, “iceberg theory”, individual style of the author, translation equivalence, fisherman, nature, marlin, shark Ernest Hemingway, a prominent representative of American literature, is one of the distinguished figures of realistic prose, whose language style is characterized by a short, deep content with a minimalistic formulation. The author’s language stands out for its naturalness, directness and compositional clarity. The writer’s subject matter is profound, based on the literary technique he created. It is “The iceberg theory-principle”: a text-context relationship which is completely in harmony with the author’s individual-aesthetic approach. The main purpose of this study is to find out the symbols in the author’s novella “The old man and the sea” through a comparative and introspective analysis, which has been done on the base of the translated examples. The symbols observed as general, individual, emotional expressions, are freely used in the novella. They make the author’s speech more profound and resonant. Each image-symbol chosen in the text has a specific meaning and all of it speaks of the high aesthetic taste and deep philosophical thinking of realist writer Hemingway. All the symbols of the novella also speak of the author’s intense imagination, boundless love for living nature and the greatest human willpower.