The Symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea

Copyright © 1988 By Odell Sneeden Hathaway, III

What is symbolized by the encounter of the old man and the Fish? In Hemingway's "The Old Man and The Sea"

MATTHEW 4:18–19
Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

I saw in the old man a picture of what God must be like: an old man, full of life—one who loves everything, even the fish whom he must kill.

“Everything about him was old except his eyes; they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

If I had to paint a picture of God, I do not know what shape I would make Him, or what color His eyes would be. I do know that He would be old and that His eyes would be young—and most of all, no matter how much He calls us and we refuse His love, He would never look defeated, but hopeful up until that moment when He kills Himself for lack of love.

“‘Thank you,’ the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility, but he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.”

In my painting, God is humble. Only a humble God would give us free will and love us, instead of letting the sea (world) dry up as maybe it should.

“He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends in the ocean.”

In my painting, God’s friends would be the angels—little gods who can go down to earth or come up out of the water (of the deep Self) into heaven. But God cannot have a true relationship with them any more than we can be happy talking only to ourselves. He needs the love that only His human children can give.

“Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current.”

Before God said, “Let there be light,” He was already ready for us to love Him. Or could it be He said this because He needs us to love Him? Could it be that only this kind of love gives life?

“No one should be alone in old age. But it is unavoidable.”

In my painting, most of all God would be lonely. It is the central reason, I believe, for Creation. God is old and alone. He needs the love which not even man can give Him. But if we let His will work through us, maybe we can grow until we can be God’s lover, companion, and friend—not His servants. That is why we are free.

We also see God to be what at first seems cruel. But I see through the cruelness a real love for each one of us (i.e., the fish). God is not a cruel God; it is we who do not understand Him. We cannot fathom the line of St. Nicholas: “Take me away from my own self.” When God is killing the “fish” in us, it is the “Self,” or as we might put it, the “ego,” that must die. The body means nothing—dead or alive—but we must freely yield our own Self to God. We must allow ourselves to grow up to the love of God. Only a fool stays a child. Growing up is always painful.

“Fish, I love you and I respect you, but I will kill you before this day is through.”
“Eat it a little more. Eat it well. Eat it so that the point of the hook goes into your heart and kills you.”
“I must not try for the head. I must get the heart.”

This is not a blood-thirsty God, but one who wants the ego to give up and let the soul fly free. He wants the words of love to go straight into our hearts.

“He started to work his way back to the stern on his hands and knees, being careful not to jerk against the fish. I may be half asleep myself, he thought, but I do not want him to rest. He must pull until he dies.”

It may seem a cruel statement, but God loves us and wants us with Him. Once the hook of God is in our mouths, we must pull until we die—even if we do not want to.

“I wish I could feed the fish. He is my brother, but I must kill him and keep strong to do it.”

God is not cruelly starving us. We know that if we are to truly live, it must be with Him through love. Each of us needs to be loved the same way God needs love.

Most of all, I see God as frustrated and loving: frustrated, because we do not give ourselves up to Him the way we know we should—surrendering ourselves to His love whenever and wherever we find it; loving, because God is love and God is patient, and He hopes in the end He will win our love.

“Fish, fish, you are going to have to die anyway; do you have to kill me too?”
“The old man always thought of her (the sea) as feminine—as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help doing them.”

What must God think of the Creation? We who live in it withhold and give great favors to the God that made us. He is alone and needs love, just as every one of us needs love. That is why God came down from Heaven and became man—to teach us the hardest of all lessons: to love. I am sure God knows that when we do wild or wicked things we cannot help them.

“My big fish must be somewhere.”

The thing that is most important to God is faith—not faith in God, but God’s faith in us—that we will give to God what God needs. As George Burns said while playing God, “If you don’t have faith in me, maybe it would help you to know that I have faith in you.” God knows that we are all looking to become His big fish. Every human being wants to be His big fish, but many do not realize that this is what we are looking for.

“He thought, ‘Eat those fish, eat them. Please eat them. How fresh they are. You are down there six hundred feet in the cold water in the dark. Make another turn in the dark and come back and eat them.’”

As Hemingway’s old man speaks to the fish, we hear the words of God calling out to us: “Eat them—eat the bait, the Word, the creative energy that I have left for you. Give yourself over to me so that I can bring you up and love you. Let me take you away from the cold and make you warm in my love. Let me show you the light that you will only find with me.” As Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart put it in The Phantom of the Opera: “Let your mind start a journey through a strange, new world! Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before! Let your soul take you where you long to be! Only then can you belong to me…”

“What will I do if he sounds and dives, I do not know, but I will do something. There are plenty of things I can do.”

God never gives up and is never beaten! If God gave up, we would not be here. You see, there are many things He can do—even go up on the cross.

“Let him jump so that he will fill the sacks along his backbone with air and then he cannot go deep to die.”

God’s world—the world above the one we live in, separated from us by a small line—is filled with an air that, once we find ourselves in it, we cannot be lost from God. Then we will always be pulled up to Him, even if it is only after we have died.

“I want to see him and to touch him and to tell him he is my fortune.”

Even at the end of the book we see the frustration of God as the sharks come and eat what he has caught. The world we live in can do that. One can lose sight of what is important even after giving one’s Self to God. Until we are dead, the ego and the Self don’t ever truly leave us. This is one of the great lessons of Jesus when He prays for God to take the cup.

“Let him think I am more man than I am, and I will be so.”

What a beautiful picture: God using man as a mirror to see how great He really is!

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