The famed novella of Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea (1952) recounts the epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin, said to be the largest catch of his life. It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone eighty four days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, feeding him, and discussing American baseball—most notably Santiago's idol, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that the next day he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. This paper highlights how the novella can be read as a parable that enunciates Hemingway's code for personal salvation.

The works of Nobel Prize winning novelist, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), deal with themes of heroism, courage, violence, horror, death, and bloodshed, for these varied outcomes were a part of his life and so of the lives of his heroes. As Philip Young (1965) has pointed out, "Hemingway's world is one in which things do not grow and bear fruit, but explode, break, decompose or are eaten away." Every writer is a product of the age in which he lives and writes, and Hemingway was no exception to this. He was a product of the age of `freedom.' He had witnessed many wars and also had firsthand experience of the Greco-Turkish War and the World Wars.

Hemingway became a living legend in his life-time for his works as well as his personal exploits. While he had achieved glory by winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, followed by the Nobel Prize in 1954, for his masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea, many critics were unkind to him. The reason for this might be his recurrent preoccupation with sex, blood, violence, and death, coupled with sadism, pessimism, and savagery. The serious themes of his books should not perturb the readers at all, as these were common facts of American life from which there was no escape. However, the most admirable feature of Hemingway's works is that they not only deal with the necessity of facing violence but also show us the way through which we can triumph over it. Herein lies the greatness of his works.

There is no doubt that his works are shorn of any sentimental idealism; even the President of the Swedish Academy, which awarded him the Nobel Prize, had admitted that idealism was certainly not Hemingway's pronounced characteristic. However, many critics loved him for what he was. According to Asmina Baptist, "But idealism or no idealism, why should we not accept him for what he is, instead of deploring what he is not?" (Narsimhaiah, 1968). The ultimate message of Hemingway's novels, it seems, is that man amidst overwhelming odds should display courage.

American Literature Journal, Personal Salvation, Personal Exploits, Sentimental Idealism, Supreme Skills, Tragic Irony, Flaming Idealism, Symbolic Significance, Physical and Moral Courage.