Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why does the old man kill the fish?
- We claimed (quite vehemently) that The Old Man and the Sea is NOT a tragedy. Are we right?
- We love the old man’s discussions of how he "went out too far." Probably because it’s cryptic and open to interpretation and involves the ever-fascinating emotion of guilt. What does he have to be guilty for? What sort of "code" did he violate?
- Santiago claims that a man can be "destroyed but not defeated." How do we define each of these terms? What’s the difference? Is one more tolerable than the other?
- How about the setting? How does the fact that the man is "alone" out on the sea affect the nature of the story?