"He is my brother. But I must kill him."

I am half way through The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The point of view switches from third to first person frequently, with the old man’s thoughts running into the narration of the story. The old man considers the fish he has caught his brother, but he is still determined to kill it. He feels sorry for it, he loves it and pities it, but he does not question what he must do to it. Not being a fisherman, I cannot fully understand that concept, but I respect it. The man respects the fish, he calls it noble, but all the while, he is wishing it dead. His love for the great fish cannot interfere with his need to catch it. To make him feel better he thinks of all the people the fish could feed, but even so he knows no one would be worthy of eating the fish.

I have no respect for people who kill animals just to kill them – for the thrill of the hunt, for the pride of having the head mounted on a wall to brag about, or in excess, so many carcasses go to waste so it is not just a waste of a life but a waste of whatever little good might have come from its death. But I do have some respect for the old man, who only kills as much has he needs to feed himself and others. He was brought up this way, he says that fishing is what he was born to do, and it is what he must do to survive. It is how he makes his living, it is his way of life, and he though he does not like that he must kill his brother, the fish, he knows that this is how life works, and what he must do. This relates to my last blog post about Hamlet’s musings on the circle of life. The old man only knows that this is the way things are, they cannot be changed, the fish must die.

The old man recounts the story of the marlin he and the boy had caught, with the male fish that refused to leave the female even after she had been caught, dragged aboard, and killed. The old man remembers how sad he and the boy were about the situation, so they said sorry and butchered her promptly. Their sorrow for the lover-fish was separated from their requirement to catch the fish. The old man has very strong emotions, he feels deeply for everything, the ocean, the moon, the stars, the fish. But he keeps these emotions separated from his job, which must be to kill that which he loves. It is an outstanding feat that he can do this, seeing as his line of work makes him go against all his emotions.

The old man has much determination, and it never even crosses his mind to give up and let the fish go, not when it starts pulling him out past the sight of land, or when he is in so much pain from holding the line. This must be the determination of a fisherman. The fish (as of yet) has not even begun to slow down or show any signs of weakness, but the man does not even think of admitting defeat. He is determined to outlast the fish and catch it, despite all the risk he is putting himself in. He is either very courageous or very stupid to continue on this journey out to sea, and I am conflicted as to who I want to see come away alive.

I have become attached to the old man as he reminisces and switches his trains of thought and talks to himself and to the fish all alone out on the open sea. But his thoughts and feelings for the fish are so heart-felt that I feel for the fish as well, and I do not want him to be caught. I would love for them both to win, but with him being a fisherman, the only way he can win is by catching a fish, and so the fish must die for the man to win. It is a sort of “neither can live while the other survives” situation, so I guess I’d rather they both die, than have only one live. I do not know if Hemmingway intended for his audience to feel so strongly for both the man and the fish, or if it is just me being all animal-lover-human-hater. Even though the man kills animals for a living, because I know so much about him I cannot help but sympathize with him. I would think that Hemmingway intended this to be so because of how the old man describes his love for the fish in the personal first-person, making the reader think as the old man thinks, and feel as he feels. This is a clever strategy, making the reader unsure of how he/she wants the story to end, and so building the suspense and keeping the reader interested to find out what actually happens. This story makes me think about many things, I have not even mentioned all the language, the use of Spanish, religion, the interconnectedness of all things, and many other ideas that this book brings to my attention, and hopefully I will have many more ideas to mull over once I finish the book.

“”We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.”

All of Hamlet revolves around death. It is the reason for the revenge, and it takes the lives of all the characters. The article I read in the New York Times mentions how the whole story revolves around death, that it is what causes and ends everything. Hamlet is concerned with mortality as much as revenge.

            This quote really intrigued me when I first read it. The whole concept that we are all just worm-food sort of gives the feeling that our lives do not matter because we will all just be food one day. The article mentions that as well, how Shakespeare is writing everyone’s future, because everyone is going to die one day. But I don’t think this quote means we should just give up, that nothing matters because we will be gone soon enough. That is too depressing a concept to really fully accept as the only truth. It may be true, but there is more to life, even if it isn’t expressed in Hamlet.

“A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm”. It may be the circle of life, but life isn’t just about surviving long enough to die. Hamlet touches on the purposes of life, mentioning the happier memories of the characters. The play shows that we cannot just exist, as humans we feel and think. No matter how many deaths Hamlet encounters, he does not give up his goal for revenge because it is his love for his dead father that keeps him going. He still feels attachment for a human who is long gone, a body whose only worth was feeding the worms. Even though that may seem to be the only value humans have on earth, food for the worms, it cannot undermine the worth humans place on themselves and each other. Though it angers Hamlet that this is the case, that in the end one’s life and death does not matter, he has to accept it as a truth in the end.

"Were things better than they are now, or were they worse?"

I have just finished part one of 1984 by George Orwell and so far, it is amazing. The amount of detail in the story, the complex future world Orwell created is so elaborate and realistic. It has its own language, government, and countries, but it could all be real. It is based in Earth, in the real world, in London, England, in a future that was entirely possible at the time in which it was written. Therein lies the horror of the story, what makes it truly frightening. This imaginary future Orwell created is not so far fetched and fictional. The basic ideas of the government, of Big Brother, were being implemented in Russia and its revolution at the time. The dystopia that is Oceania draws many parallels to the totalitarian Soviet Union in the 1940s, when 1984 was being written. Orwell was writing what could very well have been the future of not only Russia but England and the rest of Europe as well. It is a scary thought that our world today could be as oppressive and as full of lies as the world in 1984.

The lies are a significant part of Big Brother’s hold on Oceania. He is able to manipulate the past, present, and future, and the citizens not only blindly follow him but actually assist in distortion of the truth. They somewhat-willingly allow themselves to be manipulated and controlled, and contribute to the continuation of misery in their own pitiful lives. This is another thing that makes the story so unnerving. That what one thinks is a fact of the past is probably a complete fabrication, with little or no truth in it. This is slightly like history in the real world, where the same event can be told in very different ways by the different sides. Americans tell the American Revolution as a great victory over a horribly oppressive country that has no right to rule, but the British tell it as a rebellion from one unreasonably unruly colony. Those who rule get to decide how the story is told, and Big Brother makes sure every story is told as a victory for Oceania.

Winston, the protagonist, is constantly trying to figure out what of his knowledge is lies and what is truth. His need for the truth is a need for security in knowing who he is and where he came from. His need for answers is going to end up getting him into trouble and undoubtedly killed. He knows this, but he cannot stop, he cannot let it go, because he lives in a world of lies, and he cannot trust anyone but himself to be able to tell him the truth.  

What Do I Want?

I was always okay at English, not incredibly good or bad, and I had no particular love for it. Sophomore year it was interesting to learn about the American writers in context of the events of the times, since I had never learnt about American history before. But it was my junior year, as I am sure is the case with most everyone else in the class, that I began to truly enjoy literature. We read much more than in my previous classes, more authors and more from each author. But more so, we discussed the work in greater detail, with the style of the author, all the devices, and the historical context, but in more obscure detail, not the well-known facts that any American (besides myself) would already know, like we learnt in American Literature sophomore year. I was hoping to gain from AP Lit even more knowledge of literature, the who/what/when/where/why/how it is written, how they all combine to make the piece a great literary work, and how all these works can be so different and yet comparable. Basically, I really just want to learn more, soak up the knowledge all around me, mostly just to know more, and also to be able to apply what I know to other pieces of literature to understand them better.