Men is not Made for Defeat

I have read an attractive book which is called The Old Man and the Sea. This book was written by Hemingway who is one of the 20th century's most famous American writers in 1952. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

This book narrates the story of an excellent struggle with an old fisherman and the greatest marlin of his lifetime. After eighty-four days without any fish, Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, faces his defeated, but he never gives up even his only a friend Manolin who a young boy leave him. He decides alone sailing far beyond the island with his skiff.
Following his courage rise, so his unlucky was gone. At noon, a big fish, which he knows is a marlin, takes the bait that Santiago has placed deep in the waters. The old man expertly hooks the fish, but he cannot pull it in skiff. Instead, the fish begins to pull the boat around the sea. Santiago battles with marlin hardly about two days. On the third day the fish tires, and Santiago controls to pull the marlin in close enough to skiff. Then he kills it with a harpoon. The marlin was dead beside the skiff, the marlin is the largest fish Santiago has ever seen.
He sails on with the fish, but the marlin’s blood leaves in the water and attracts sharks. The first to attack is a great shark. Santiago fights it with the harpoon. In the struggle, the old man loses the harpoon. Afterward, the sharks eat the marlin’s meat, leaving only skeleton, head, and tail. He arrives home before daybreak, come back to his shack and sleeps very deeply.
The next morning, a crowd of amazed fishermen gathers around the skeletal of the fish. Tourists at a nearby café talk the remains of the large fish and mistake it for a shark. Manolin, who has been worried the old man’s safety. When he finds Santiago in his bed, the boy takes the old man some coffee and the daily papers with the baseball scores, and watches him sleep. When the old man wakes, they agree to fish together again. The old man returns to sleep and dreams his usual dream of lions at play on the beaches.

My favorite in this book is first, second and third paragraph on page 9 and page 10.
The first paragraph makes a very clears background which before 84 days what happen in simple and direct way. It likes a hook hold reader’s attention and attracts them to focus what will happen after the finally salao, worst form of unlucky. The highlight is final sentence of paragraph.
The second program describes a picturesque old man standing up our front as a lively fishman with enough experiences on fishing.
The third paragraph tells us a cheerful and undefeated old man from his unique eyes. Last sentence is a transition sentence for the book.

1.First paragraph of this book:
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled; it looked like the flag of permanent defeat. (p9)

2. Second paragraph of this book:
The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert. (p9)

3. Third paragraph of this book:
Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. (p10)

Following quotation as a bright line crosses through whole book. It clearly represents what the old man was in this story.
The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him. (p10)
You are already a man. (p11)
“Thank you,” the old man said. He was
“Thank you,” the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.

"I am a strange old man.”
"But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?"
“I think so. And there are many tricks." (p14)

He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. (p24)
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. (p25)

No one should be alone in their old age. (48)

The old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more than a thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of land. (p62)

“Now is when I must prove it.”
The thousand times that he had proved it meaning. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it. (p66)

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”(p103)
“Think about something cheerful, old man,” he said. “Every minute now you are closer to home, you sail lighter for the loss of forty pounds.”(p104)

“The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see,” (p124)
“The hell with luck,” the boy said. I will bring the luck with me.” (p125)

What’s that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tied. (p126)
Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions. (p126)

After the completely reading, I got three points from this book.
1. The lifetime of person likes a small skiff alone sail on the endless sea. The old man said,
“The ocean is very big and a skiff is small and hard to see.” to struggle with the sea is useless but we must do it. It is human tragedy everyone had to face, but it is also excellent battle in human tragedy. The author was an example, he struggle, defeated, success and finally he killed himself in 1961.
2. Build your idol in heart. It can be a belief, a love, or a goal. It makes your lifetime more alive. The old man’s idol is a baseball star. When it is the hardest time he supports him. Our idol makes our life more active, don’t care what is finally finish. Exciting is in process of life.
3. Keep a dream in our lifetime. The old man’s dream is a lion on the beach. It always makes him in a soul balance. Make a dream is easy, but keep a dream cross the lifetime is hard. why the old man after 84 days without taking a fish, but he keep going on his goal, because he had a beautiful dream, and he believed he just like a lion on the beach temporary. Most successful people could face the defeat as dreamer as the old man.
I appreciate this book and its author. It made a new idol and dream for people who really need it like me. From this book I knew that when an old man’s eyes were old, he was really old, because he couldn’t clearly see the sea of life.

This book even thought wrote in half century ago, but it worth people who want to struggle in the sea of life to read with their heart. It is a great book over the space and time since it is writing by writer’s soul. It will touch your deep heart and inspire you; also you will get the power from this story
Imagine if you are the old man alone fishing on the sea, what do you do and what is your story? Now, we do not need to sail alone and fish on the huge sea, but we still need to face struggle and defeated.
The old man often stays in his dream as a lion on the beach, it means doesn’t matter what you were and how powerful you are, the defeated always following you like a lion on the beach. When you are a lion on the beach, what is your option?
The old man tells us, “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”(p103) if you are a man, struggle to the sea, despite the struggle is useless. This is America courage, when you came to this land you should have it. This is why the book won the Nobel Prize of literature in 1954, and why we should read it and get its courage forever.
Take a reading when you will defeat or have defeated on the sea of life, my friends.

As a Man to Face the Probelms

“No one is perfect in this world” even the excellent Idol. I absolutely agree with it. For instance, I read a short story which talks a person, Tom Cruise who is an outstanding Hollywood movie star and an idol of most young people. He has a big problem, dyslexia which is a disturbance of the ability to read. I cannot imagine how a person who has dyslexia could become an actor, let alone a famous movie star. We know that actors first have to read movie scripts and remember all conversations from scripts. Second, they need to know a lot of background for the scripts they read. Researching points out that people get 75% of their information from reading, and only 25% from listening and conversation. A person who cannot read is almost like a disabled person, but Tom Cruise bravely faces his problem until he overcomes it. He learns his movie scripts by listening to tapes, not by reading them, and spends much time to grasp it. Finally he has success. Many think that successful people are some geniuses in their field certainly. In fact, everyone has the problems that he or she needs to face and overcome. For me, I have faced the most difficult language barrier in my lifetime. Especially the pronunciation drives me in predicament. I try to face it bravely, never dodge it. It is unbelievable when I give up anything to face the only problem with me, but I still cannot conquer it. What do I should do for it? As Tom Cruise as a man still face the problem even though must face it forever.