The Old and the Sea- Personification.

Since this book is centered around an old man traveling around at sea, obviously, he doesn't really have anyone to talk to. One of his favorite people that he misses dearly, the young boy, isn't on the boat while he sails the gulf. He has to be lonely because of this. He won't stop saying how much he misses the boy as a matter of fact. I've noticed him using personification every now and again around the fish and other sea critters. He was saying how they were making jokes with one another, and playing around, and loving each other. I think this is to ease his loneliness and know that there are other living things around him. Being the only person around can be quite empty. The crazy thing, though, is that there is plenty of life in the sea. Life that we haven't even discovered, yet! So, it is no wonder that the old man would try to talk to the fish, think about how they're feeling, give them personalities, and make a mini-story line for them. It is at least way more comforting than have nothing to talk to.

It would also make things more entertaining; He is spending plenty of hours waiting to catch huge fish, but have the time it is just emptiness, and him waiting for certain fish to catch onto the bait or that he has to find. I know I would try to do something similar to entertain me if I had nothing else to do. This book was written before cell phones, ipods, and computers and all the other high-tech entertainment machines that we have today, and most of them weren't portable during that time either (though, it never mentioned the exact time this book was set in) so he didn't have much else to do besides think and fish, so why not make up some stories about the living fish that are swimming below and all around him?

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.