An Analysis of Symbolic Meanings in The Old Man and the Sea 老人与海的象征意义.doc

An Analysis of Symbolic Meanings in The Old Man and the Sea Introduction The author of The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His father Clarence Edmonds Hemingway was a physician, and his mother Grace Hall–Hemingway was a musician. Both were well-educated and well-respected in the conservative community of Oak Park. The family owned a summer home called Windermere on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan, which they visited during the summers. There Hemingway learned to hunt, fish, and camp in the woods and lakes of Northern Michigan. His early experiences with nature instilled a lasting passion for outdoor adventure, living in remote or isolated areas, hunting and fishing. His variety of interest, especially the love of fishing extremely affected all his life and he drew much writing inspiration from his fishing experience. Taking adventures also plays a vital role in his life and for the reason that he experienced the two world wars. Hemingway attended World War I as an ambulance driver of Red Cross. He received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery because of his prominent performance in the battlefield. He was sent to Europe for a long time. He joined World War Ⅱ and Spanish Civil War as a journalist. All these rich experiences brought much material to his writing. He worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist. During his high school time he attended The Kansas City Star as a reporter, where he learned that the truth was often beneath the story. Although he worked at the newspaper for only six months, he established his writing style that short sentences and short first paragraphs were used and positive but not negative attitude was presented in his reports. After published many famous works, he developed his own writing style. Since 1940 he did not issue any works for ten years. As a mouthpiece of “the lost generation”, Hemingway suffered cold shoulder and attack almost ten