Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: The Old Man and the Sea is regarded as the best work by Hemingway himself. It is a novel full of many symbols. This thesis aims to reveal those hidden meanings by studying the symbolic images, such as the sea, the old man, the boy, the marlin, the shark and the lions. Through the symbols, Hemingway shows readers an old man, in spite of poor condition, fighting with fate to the end. This vivid depiction presents the great human spirit of unyieldingness. Besides, the application of symbolism is also a revelation of Hemingway’s “Iceberg Theory”. These simple images in the novel are just one-eighth above water and the seven-eighths under water will be revealed with the interpretation of them.

Key word: Hemingway; symbolism; Iceberg Theory

摘要：海明威称《老人与海》是他一生中所写出的最好的作品。小说中充满了象征。本文旨在通过对象征意象，如大海、老人、男孩、马林鱼、鲨鱼及狮子的分析来揭示其暗含意义。通过这些象征，海明威向读者展示了不管情况如何糟糕，老人都与命运奋战到底。这一生动的描绘显示了人类不屈服的伟大精神。其次，象征手法的应用也展现了海明威的冰山理论。小说中的角色都是简单的露在水面的八分之一，而要揭露水下的八分之七则需要对这些象征的阐释。

关键词：海明威；象征手法；冰山理论

1. Introduction
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), an American modern novelist and short story-writer, is one of the most famous writers in 20th century. He is regarded as the spokesman for “the Lost Generation”. Hemingway is a productive writer. Among all his writings The Old Man and the Sea won him the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Award of Merit Medal for the Novel, and this novel also confirmed his status in world literary for the winning of the Nobel Prize in 1954 for Literature. This short novel is about an old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his fighting against a giant marlin. For 84 days he does not catch any fish. Perseveringly, he hooks a marlin and after three days’ struggle, the mighty marlin is killed and is tied to the boat. Unfortunately on the way home, a more fierce fight is waiting for him—the sharks. The old man is chased by many sharks and they eat up the marlin in the end, leaving nothing except the skeleton. The old man can only back with the remains and his dream.
This is a simple fish story, but it becomes Hemingway’s masterpiece because of his outstanding writing skill. Researchers have made lots of explorations to this novel. This thesis focuses on the study of symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea. The use of symbolism makes this novel seemingly simple, yet there are deep symbolic meanings in it.