most famous american book, A short and easy read, Ernest Hemingway’s magnum opus is simple in its narrative yet profoundly meaningful.The Old Man and the Sea is exactly that: the story of an old, unlucky fisherman who decides to once again venture into the sea to achieve the catch of a lifetime. No significant stakes are at play—just a man past his physical prime but at a ripe young age in spirit.A study on personal drive, courage, and respect, The Old Man and the Sea shows what it means to be a good man and the challenges of perseverance.Of course, American classic literature is far more than just these ten works. Authors such as Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne created exceptional masterpieces that have become jewels in the crown of the English written word.This list is an appetizer—a brief introduction to the vast, rich, and diverse world of American literature. A world we certainly encourage you to dive into head-first.If you’re looking for these books, check out BookScouter. All you need: enter a book’s ISBN on the website and have access to all current offers available to buy, sell or rent the book you’re searching for from 20+ online booksellers.
Readers often find the closing conversation between Manolin and Santiago a serene coda to a touching relationship between a young boy and an old man, but the conversation also shows the full reach of the duplicitous manipulations in Santiagos passive aggression and warrants detailed examination. When the boy demands that Santiago not sit up and that he drink the coffee Manolin has poured into a glass, Santiago declares, They beat me, Manolin. . . . They truly beat me (124). This seems a normal enough opening line for a man who has just survived an ordeal, but the ambiguity of they requires Manolin to identify the pronouns referent, the sharks. Although the pronoun ambiguity can be attributed to the confusion of a just-awakened man, it also is a small act of aggression: its inconsiderateness demands mental labor from Manolinas ambiguous pronoun referents routinely do (thereby earning retaliatory downgrading from teachers). By saying that the sharks beat him, Santiago claims a role as th
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· sharks victim, altogether minimizing his role as aggressive agent in the killing of the fish. By this inversion of who he isvictim instead of agentSantiago deliberately downplays his aggression during the ordeal, but thereby reveals his efforts now to conceal the aggression he subtly displays against Manolin. Manolin does not ask him how the sharks beat him but instead vehemently asserts, as the texts italics indicate, that the marlin did not beat Santiago: He didnt beat you. Not the fish (124). Manolin again takes the aggressive role, for Santiagos incomplete information both compels him to assert what he believes is true and plays on Manolins guilt at having been absent during the beating Santiago got.
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More of Santiagos veiled aggression occurs when Manolin asks what Santiago wants done with the marlins head. He answers, Let Pedrico chop it up to use in fish traps (124), permitting another act of aggressionchopping up the fishheadto be done but not by himself. When Manolin asks what is to be done with the fishs spear, Santiago says, You keep it if you want it (124). Because of the size of the fish, Santiago knows that the spear is a valuable trophy. Indeed, the possessor of the marlins spear will be envied as the inheritor of a prize and esteemed as the beneficiary of everything the spear symbolizesprimarily the legendary status that will be accorded to Santiago as the man who caught the gigantic fish with his bare hands. So the nonchalance in Santiagos conditional answer to Manolins questionYou keep it if you want (124; italics mine)is disingenuous. He knows for a certainty that Manolin wants the spear and to pretend otherwise tacitly accuses Manolin of being as indifferent to posse
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In short, Santiago manipulates Manolin by making him declare what Santiago already knows he will say and what would need no saying between strong friends, I want it (124).
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