The Old Man and the Sea Descriptions

            One thing that catches my eye when reading a novel, are the in depth descriptions given by the author.  In The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway did a fantastic job of doing just that.  For example, “He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus again the high September sky” (Hemingway 61).   This sentence made me stop and read it again.  It put an image in my mind of a beautiful day with big, white, fluffy clouds in the blue sky.  Saying it looked like ice cream put a smile on my face, which is always a good thing.  Also it informed me of some of the types of clouds, cirrus and cumulus. 

            Another quote that made me stop was, “Nothing showed on the surface of the water but some patches of yellow, sun-bleached Sargasso weed and the purple, formalized , iridescent, gelatinous bladder of a Portuguese man-of-war floating close beside the boat” (Hemingway 35).  After reading this, I went on the internet and looked up both Sargasso weed and Portuguese man-of-war.  That way I could prove the image in my mind of both things.  Sargasso weed is yellow and usually clumps together in the water.  The bladder of the Portuguese man-of-war is a gas filled sac that floats on the surface of the water while the rest of its body stays underwater (Portuguese).  Santiago saw the “purple, formalized, iridescent, gelatinous bladder. 

            The last description I am going to state is “He could picture the fish swimming in the water with his purple pectoral fins set wide as wings and the great erect tail slicing through the dark” (Hemingway 67).  This described the beautiful marlin that Santiago battled with for three days.  You are able to picture the fish jumping far out of the ocean to show off his strength and sleekness. Using descriptive words helps to create images in the readers minds.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.

"Portuguese Man O' War." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 8 June 2012.