Setting- Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea was set in a time period where making money was a very tough thing to do. The history of the book was set after the war and the depression. People are starting to go to work again and starting to make a living. The behavior of the setting and time period is working hard and starting to make a living after the war and the depression. Social issues at this time period were very hard to work out because people were so focused on working and making sure they have enough money for themselves. The old man who was basically lost at sea with a mighty fish is just going out there for the challenge. Which brings out his traits which are he is putting everything behind him like the depression, war, how poor he is and just goes out to catch this mighty fish for a challenge. This book symbolizes how hard people had to work during these tough times just to make sure that they had enough food for themselves and their families. Hemingway adds, "The shack was made of the tough budshields of the royal palm which are called guano and in it there was a bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to cook with charcoal" (Hemingway 15). This shows how hard life was back then as a fisherman. The thematic significance is just the challenges that people had to carry out daily just to meet their standard needs. The old man portrays a big part of that challenge. He is a fisherman and especially in those days fisherman barely made any money comparing to other people. The money they made would be the fish that they caught. The old man had gone eighty four days without catching a fish so he was very poor at the time. That challenge for him was very tough so that's why he stayed with that fish for so long which was because the fish was so big that it would be a lot of money and the old man liked the challenge he had. In times like these making money was very difficult and the old man shows us a great deal of what life was like.

Bibliography

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.