Hemingway, the symbolic and mythical style.

Essay by athleticeupUniversity, Master'sA-, August 2003

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The style of writing of Hemingway has been a field of study for hundreds of critics since his firsts works. The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's novels that have attracted most of the modern criticism. The style of The Old Man and the Sea and of his other works was heavily influenced by his early work as journalist at The Kansas City Star, whose style sheet instructed him to "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English".

Because of this principle, somebody can guess that with this style there is no so many place to imagination, and, therefore to recreate in images. However, critics were very aware since the very beginning that the works of Hemingway always hide a second or a third reading. A New York Times review of In Our Time tells that "He makes each word count in three or four ways .

. . there is an authentic energy which is contained in an almost primitive isolation of images as if the language itself were being made over in its early directness of metaphor"

In his own writing, Hemingway created an individual form of modernist prose based on the language and the style of the journalism. He wrote in such a way that the reader would feel the same emotion that the one felt by the author in the lines of the text.

According to the quotation above of the New York Times review, my purpose with this essay is to find these seconds and thirds readings in Hemingway's short novel The Old Man and the Sea. In this aspect I will focus in two secondary readings: the book seen as a Christian allegory, which for the critic is very obvious, and, secondly, the connection of the main character,