This thesis proposes to show that Hemingway's novels reveal a change of attitude which culminates in an increased faith in the ultimate goodness and dignity of man.

This study opposes the traditional argument that Ernest Hemingway uses settings in his major full-length fiction which primarily depict modern man's rootlessness. On the contrary, he carefully chooses settings, with Spain as the metaphorical center, which evoke a sense of the medieval past, a concept which I define and describe as "twentieth-century medievalism." Although it is argued that Hemingway is cosmopolitan in his choice of settings, he excludes those settings which are not fundamentally Roman Catholic. In addition to his careful choice of settings and his use of medieval motifs, Hemingway also establishes the love relationship between man and woman as a central symbol for twentieth-century wholeness and unity. Once the concept of "twentieth-century medievalism" has been defined within Hemingway's major full-length fictional canon, the study then focuses on The Old Man and the Sea as the novel which consummately exemplifies how Hemingway's medievalism suggests microcosmic unity. An analysis of criticism written on The Old Man and the Sea shows the approaches to be highly eclectic and an important issue (whether the novel is a tragedy) to be unresolved. This study shows how "twentieth-century medievalism" provides a unified fictional microcosm for the novel and serves as a backdrop from which Hemingway projects his uniquely medieval modern-world tragedy. The Old Man and the Sea, however, is not simply a tragedy but is an artistic novel which correlates time (complete twenty-four-hour periods) with four literary modes of expression: comedy, lyricism, the heroic, and tragedy. During the initial days, Santiago is gradually transformed from a common fisherman to a lyric questioner of life's meaning, then to an epic hero, and finally to a tragic protagonist who acts out his role in a carefully delineated Aristotelian tragedy. Throughout the novel, the comic sense reminds both Santiago and the reader that the fisherman's experience is ultimately a comedy of transformations. The study concludes by relating the concept of artistic transformation to the emergence of the Hemingway myth and argues for a more sensible interpretation of the myth. Finally the study affirms that the intricacies of Hemingway's artistry have not been fully explored and offers the concept of "twentieth-century medievalism" as a technique to make more comprehensible Hemingway's romanticism.

In this study I’ve conducted an analysis of Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Old Man and the Sea where my focus has been analyzing the main character Santiago and how and in what ways he can symbolize mankind’s great need of faith. The definition of what faith is and can be understood as is based on the theory called “worldview” or “philosophy of life”. The usage of this theory is because the faith I’m analyzing, through Santiago, is one that is unspecified and dynamic. I’ve used two methods to conduct my analysis, hermeneutics and close-reading. My analysis is divided into three headlines which follow the progress of the novels story, each with a specific theme: Santiago, destiny and death. To answer the leading research question, how and in what ways Santiago can symbolize faith, I’ve formulated analysis questions for each heading which I’ve answered by with citing the novel and interpretating what said quote may signify regarding my study’s purpose. My conclusion for the study is, simply put, that Santiago in matter of fact does symbolize man’s great need of faith. I’ve examined how complex faith is, how it can be experienced and the importance of its functionality. In other words, my analysis has resulted in another, perhaps new, image of what faith is and can be.

Hemingway claims in Green Hills of Africa that "all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." If this basic idea is applied to his own work, elements of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn appear in some of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories and his novel The Old Man and the Sea. All major characters and several minor characters in these works share the quality of natural innocence, composed of their primitivism, sensibility, and active morality. Hemingway's Nick, Santiago, and Manolin, and Twain's Huck Finn and Jim reflect their authors' similar backgrounds and experiences and themselves come from similar environments. These environments are directly related to their continued possession and expression of their natural innocence.

Reading is a past time activity that is popular all around the world. It is something thathelps us escape reality and put our focus elsewhere. When immersing yourself in afictional world, it can be intriguing to think of how it was created. When we think ofworld-building, we think especially of fantasy works such as The Lord of The Rings orSF classics such as Dune takes place. But what about fictional worlds that are closer tothe world known by its readers? Ernest Hemingway based his novel The Old Man andThe Sea on the actual world, which makes it believable and relatable. Most previousstudiesfocus on underlying meanings of the narrative, on metaphors orstylistic choices.It is a novel that is narratively limited to one man and a fish out in the open ocean, butit still feels as if the world surrounding them is vast. Hemingway was known for usinga simple style when creating his fictional worlds and this essay will try to comprehendhow he managed to create such an intricate world by following one simple fishermanand his struggle with the biggest fish of his life. In this essay I will argue that the useof an emic point of view – using the perception of the protagonist Santiago – invitesthe reader to recenter to one point in this vast world, while the occasional intrusion ofan etic perspective establishes a connection between the narrator and reader thatlocalizes Santiago’s point of view.

With his suicide in 1961, Ernest Hemingway seemingly cemented into place his legacy as the classic image of the able-bodied, masculine man; he was, to many, the anti-disability writer, the author who lived for ability, lost ability, and took his life once he realized no chance of regaining his ability existed. Such a narrative, however, ignores the truly complicated and dynamic shape his understanding of the body took. Through an analysis of The Old Man and the Sea, I examine the form this ideology of ability took at the end of his life when, like the novella’s protagonist, Santiago, his failing health forced him to focus on the realities of the inevitable failure of his own body. Through the application of research such as David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder’s theory of narrative prosthesis, Tobin Siebers’ work on the ideology of ability, and Andrew Farah’s research on Hemingway’s declining physical condition, I demonstrate the ways The Old Man and the Sea legitimizes the disabled body, avoiding, in the process, several common narrative tropes such as the overcoming narrative or the kill-or-cure dichotomy and creating a space in which the inevitable decay of the human body must be seriously and honestly addressed. Through this research, a new more nuanced picture of Hemingway emerges, one that recognizes the complicated and dynamic nature his view of the able-bodied individual took.