Teaching Hemingway and the Natural World by Maier Kevin;

Author:Maier, Kevin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

Fig. 1. Winslow Homer’s “The Gulf Stream.” Metropolitan Museum of Art. Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1906. www.metmuseum.org.

Although The Old Man and the Sea offers many poignant descriptions of Santiago’s small skiff, students lacking maritime literacy may not be able to visualize the boat accurately. Photographs taken by the author himself help correct that problem. Out sportfishing on Pilar in 1934, either Hemingway or a member of his party photographed Cuban fishermen in their traditional watercraft. He kept the pictures for the rest of his life, perhaps to aid his memory when describing these boats in his writing.6

Figure 2 shows two fishermen struggling to load a large shark into a small wooden boat similar to the one in Homer’s painting, reminding us of the disadvantage Santiago faces in fishing alone. The sail is up and fitted precisely like Santiago’s in The Old Man and the Sea: “Then he stepped the mast and, with the stick that was his gaff and the boom rigged, the patched sail drew” (97).

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