《老人与海》的悲剧色彩：对完美主义的质疑
Abstract
Through ages, human beings have always been in pursuit of the perfection of ev erything. Not all things, however, are perfect in the world. Both Hemingway an
d Santiago, th
e hero in his famous work The Old Man and the Sea are perfection ists. In their daily lives, perfectionists have endless sadness since they alw ays demand more and more. When a person wants more and his prent situation c ould not satisfy him, he is bound to involve in a strange circle, which will m ake his mentality full o
f contradictories. It is uneasy for him to let himlf free. Perfectionists could not be easily understood by others. Though an analy sis of the tragedy of the old man and Hemingway, this thesis mainly discuss the tragic color in The Old Man and the Sea, and draws a conclusion that their perfectionism leads to their tragedy. In that way, the paper challenges perfec tionism. Just like an old sayin
g goes: “No one is perfect”. There is no abso lute perfectionism in the world. In fact, pursuing perfectio
n is a good medici ne for tho who are vacuous to remedy, but on the premi that they know thei
r potential well in pursuit of perfection. If a person does not know his poten tial of perfection and over-pursues it, not only does he live without happines s, but he gets nothing in the end as well. The world is imperfect. Therefore,
it is esntial to accept the imperfection of the world and learn to abnegate some unrealistic pursuits. This thesis tries to elucidate the truth that peopl
e who over-pursue perfection cannot but hurt themlves in the end.
Key Words
tragic color; perfection; perfectionism; Hemingway; Santiago
摘要
千古以来，人们历来追求事事的完美，然而，事事皆不完美，即使是人们心目中最完美的东西也有它的破绽。就像是海明威和他的名著《老人与海》里的铁汉英雄–圣地亚哥一样，他们两人都是人们心目中的完美主义者。然而在日常的生活中，完美主义者总是有着无穷无尽的悲哀，因为他们一生的追
求会随着自己目标的达成变得越来越多。若是一个追求完美的人为自己定了很高的目标而没有实现时，他们就很容易陷入一种精神的怪圈，这样的怪圈使得他们的内心总是充满矛盾，在不断的挣扎中，他们难以脱身。
本论文从研究《老人与海》的悲剧色彩入手，分析老人的悲剧，指出他的悲剧是由他的完美主义思想所致，同时也说明海明威的悲剧，海明威对自己的要求太高了，他不断追求心中达到完美的目标，甚至有些目标已经超过了他的能力范围。然而，他的事事追求完美的思想使得他承受不了生活的压力，病痛的折磨，最终，他以自杀结束了他本是辉煌灿烂的
人生。接着论文则对世人觉得理所当然的追求完美主义的思想提出质疑。正如金无赤金，人无完人所阐述的道理，世间没有绝对的完美。实际上追求完美是弥补心灵空虚人的一剂良药，但前提是在人们真正了解自己的潜能。一个人若是连自己都不了解，不知道自己真正所需，就过度追求生命中事事的完美，那他的一生必定没有幸福，而且到头来也不会得到他所追求的完美。整理我们的思绪，放弃不切实际的想法，做我们自己而不在意别人的想法，这才是我们每个人应该做的。世界从来就不完美，学会放弃才是人生的宽途。
本论文分析老人和海明威的悲剧以及对造成他们悲剧的原因–追求完美主义，进行分析，试图说明过分追求完美必然导致对自己的伤害。
关键词
悲剧色彩；完美；完美主义；海明威；圣地亚哥
Introduction
Hemingway’s life is filled with kinds of adventures, and from his rich and co lorful life experiences，his life ems like an unusual book which many other people in the world admire and envy. Indeed, Hemingway is a great writer, a co de man with white beard; even today he had left us for a few decades, his brav e figure has still been living in people’s memory. His adventurist spirit mad e him create many novels, so that people always say he directs his own stories in his works. From his works and life experiences, Hemingway is indeed a perfe ctionist. Many of the heroes that he created in novels are reprented his cod e man spirit–perfectionism, especially in The Old Man and the Sea. The old ma n named Santiago reprented Hemingway’s perfectionism characteristic more vi vidly than other code man in his works. Hemingway left many myths to the liter ary world after his shocking death, more and more rearchers discusd his wo rks; a lot of discussions are talked about his writing style, life experiences and his own code man spirit. Hemingway’s name had been staying in literary wo rld forever becau of the whole world’s attention.
Perfectionism is a double-edged blade which brings both honor and sadness to H emingway. He cho to die in the prime of his life. Hemingway left many unsolv ed questions to the whole world, people regret for his choice. Meanwhile, we c ould find a real Hemingway when we stand in his shoes, he is a complete perfec tionist. He would prefer regretting for the whole world to regretting for hims elf, that’s a perfectionist’s choice.
Even though Hemingway cho another way to express his hero spirit and his per fectionism, some people suspect what his perfectionism brought to him. Perfect ionism brought honor, wealth, wonderful life to him, but he decided to discard all honor becau he had been tortured by sickness greatly, he cho to die in
the end. Hemingway was involved in strange perfectionism circle. At the same t ime, the code man spirit made him pursuit perfection of everything. As a perfe ct man in people’s eyes is Hemingway’s aim. The old man who Hemingway create d in The Old Man and the Sea is also a person reprented Hemingway’s perfect ionism spirit. He has his own sadness.
The paper focus on The Old Man and the Sea，find out the tragic color in the novel, meanwhile, explains Hemingway’s tragedy in order to challenge the perf ectionism which is held by the author–Hemingway and his creative code hero–S antiago.
坚持德才兼备I Background
A． To the Author: Earnest Hemingway
酱鸡翅
Earnest Miller Hemingway was born in a well-to-do family in Oak Park, Illinois near Chicago, on July 21st, 1899. He was an American Nobel Prize winner in lit erature (1954), a spokesman for “The Lost Generation”. After he got th e Nobe l Prize, he ended his life by himlf. His life was filled with many kinds of adventures that reprent in his works. He styled the particular type of the t ragic hero in his novels, and his life attitude had been widely recognized and imitated in English-speaking countries and all over the world as well. Hemingw ay was a myth in his own time and in American literature.
高考新方案B. The Medium-Length Novel
1. Summary
Among all of Hemingway’s works, The Old Man and the Sea, it is a work that le ads to the top of He mingway’s career of writer and made him receipt the Nobel Prize. It is a poetic tragic novel about Santiago–an old Cuban fisherman who has gone for 84 days without catching anything. Therefore, the boy, Mandolin, who ud to sail with him, is forced by his parents to leave the old man and c atch
in another “good-lucky” ship. The old man insists on fishing alone and at last, he hooks an eighteen-foot, giant marlin, the largest he has ever know n. But the titanic fish is very powerful and disobedient. It tows the old man and his boat out to a for 48 hours, with the old man bearing the whole weigh t of the fish through the line on his back. The old man, with little food and sleep, has to endure much pain and fights against his treacherous hand cramp. To his great excitement, on his third day at a, he succeeds in catching the weakened marlin to the surface and harpoons it. On his way home, he lashed mar lin alongside his boat becau it is too big to be pulled into the boat. But, unfortunately, the sharks in different directions assaulted the old man and th
e giant marlin for four times. The old man fights to kill the sharks with as m uch might and many weapons as he can summon, but only to find a giant skeleton o
f his marlin left after his desperate defen. At last, Santiago, havin
秦老汉
g lost what he fought for, reaches the shore and struggles to his shack. He falls int o sound sleep, dreaming of Africa and the lions again. His struggle wins him m uc
幼儿园的英文h respect; meanwhile, he still made himlf indulge in the atmosphere of tra gic color, no one understands his sadness except himlf.
2. The Social Background of This Work
Literature is the reflection of society. Therefore, in order to prove this nov el’s tragic color, the social background is one of the necessary factors for us to appreciate this work.
Hemingway lived in the period that the World War One broke out; many young vol unteers took part in “the war which also called a war end all wars”. But the harsh reality made them aware that modern warfare was not as glorious or heroi c as they thought. As a young writer and spokesman of the “The Lost Generatio n”, and influenced by the frivolous, greedy and heedless way of life in Ameri ca. Hemingway’s works all vividly recorded the life of tho physically and m entally wounded soldie rs, revealed the frustration, loneliness when “God is d ead”. That period’s tragedy made Hemingway’s works full with tragic color, such as A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon, The Sun Also Ri and TheO ld Man and the Sea. The menace, the anguish dereliction, the futility and ster ility expresd in the works had been afflicting all nsitive members of th e post-war generation.
The other circumstances that made Hemingway wrote the novel was Hemingway’s w riting capability had been questioned by people at that time. Under kinds of g ossip, Hemingway decided to write The Old Man and the Sea which had been const ructed in his mind for more than 10 years. At last, this masterpiece proved hi s writing talent.
II The Tragic Color in The Old Man and the Sea
A. Definition of the Tragic Color
In the ancient Greek, tragedy is defined as Socrates died from poison; Jesus w as hung on the cross. In the eyes of westerners, tragedy is the highest art in aesthetics. Some artists even thought real art only comes from tragedy. A larg e number of writers and artists focus their eyes on tragedy, so that they are willing to create their works with tragedies.
There are so many explanations for the word “tragedy”. The definition of tra gedy in the Dictionary of Literature Theory is: “tragedy is a story with cont radictory confliction ended up with the good person’s unfortunate fate.” Ari stotle, who is one of the greatest teachers in ancient educational history, ha s ever defined tragedy thus: “tragedy, then, is and imitation of an actio n th at is rious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.”(王佐良，2004，29) Chine famous literary writer Lu Xun defined the word “tragedy” that: tragedy de stroys the most valuable things in people’s life in front of human beings. Ge nerally speaking, tragedy o nly refers to good persons’ unfortunate fate. In t he eyes of this thesis’ author, according to this Hemingway’s novel—The Old Man and the a, which is a typically works that comply with Chine tragic re cognition–destroy the old man’s efforts in front of
肉球近方蟹
怎么烤肉过敏吃什么药people. That is the crue lty of tragedy. In this medium-length novel, tragedy reprented in many respe cts, such as the old man tortured by loneliness, sickness and so on, even the titanic fish has its tragedy.
B. Tragic Color Reprented in the Novel
Tragic color in this novel is mainly reprented in two quarters, the first re spect is the titanic fish’s inborn tragedy; the cond part is the old man’s tragedy.
1. Titanic Fish’s Tragedy
The first tragedy is existed in the giant marlin’s tragedy. Fish is bor n to b e defeated, it’s an immutable fact.
It was defeated by the old man, and then it was destroyed completely by four f ierce sharks’ continually attack. A fish is born to be defeated, its fate is bound to be defeated and shared by human beings or other stronger animals. Tha t’s a fish’s tragedy. It’s an inborn lor.
2. The Old Man’s Tragedy
The titanic fish’s tragedy is one of tragedies in the novel, but the old man’s tragedy is the main tragedy in it.
From the very beginning of this novel, Hemingway depicted the sad tone that a poor and lonely man with shabby boat, deep a as background is also symbolize s a kind of sad tone, the sad tones last at the end of this novel.
The old man’s wife has been dead for many years, without leaving any descenda nts, he miss his wife very much, in order to not miss his wife, he puts off
