In Ernest Hemingway's novel " The old man and the sea" he teaches the reader the struggle with failure and how it can change a person mentally and physically in the novel the old man tries and tries to catch a fish but always fails as stated in the quote "the old man came in each day with his skiff empty" this quote represents the failure the old man always has when he goes fishing on the Gulf Stream yet as the reader reads on the reader finds out that as failure comes and it seems hopeless it's bound to help a person find success after trying and trying that one day a person's luck could change.
At any moment they could get what they most desire in life which in the old man's case it's a fish that he can eat and enjoy and as the reader reads on the reader realizes that the actions of this old man such as clubbing a fish to death while having a child on board. To hear those sounds as a child and to remember the harsh and harmful sounds of the old man clubbing a fish till blood Poor's out. That's what the reader realizes that for the old man failure is the only option he has because that's all the old man knows how to do plus the old man is teased all the time for hid failures he also mocked and is regarded as a " salao" as Hemingway puts it as it is the worst form of being unlucky. The old man's story is so tragic it's as if Hemingway wanted the old man to be unlucky so the reader could feel the pain and suffering that the old man feels. As he comes home from long periods of fishing with no success at all as if Hemingway wanted the reader to place him/ herself in the shoes or bare foot with the old man and feel the failure the old man feels through the ways the old man acts and does through out the story telling . This is what Hemingway wanted was to make the reader feel the tragic side of failure and shows that even through failure that there is success.
This is the life lesson Hemingway's novel " the old man and the sea" teaches the reader that even if the reader fails he or she can success through hard work and determination.
By: Ben Cheeks
