Ernest Hemingway’s working title for The Old Man and the Sea was The Sea in Being. But he didn’t like that so he changed it to The Dignity of Man. What resulted as The Old Man and the Sea is a story about the dignity of man in the sea of being.

Santiago is a man of dignity. The dictionary definition of “dignity” is a “bearing, conduct or speech indicative of self-respect or appreciation of the formality or gravity of an occasion or situation.” Santiago respects and appreciates himself as a fisherman who “knows many tricks” and has “resolution.” And yet, the tricks and also the resolution come from the one source and supply of all that is Santiago and his life, that being the sea and all that is in it, surrounds it and is of it. Santiago’s dignity comes from knowing this, knowing his Oneness with all that is. The birds, the fish and the stars are his friends, and even the sharks he sees as beautiful “except [the] jaws” (p. 100). Being in this conscious state of Oneness, Santiago is guided by the man-of-war bird to the site of the big fish (p. 33) …this is just one “trick” provided by Santiago’s universe.

Santiago’s resolution is seen in his “brother,” the great fish that he catches. Santiago’s resolution is especially seen in how Santiago perceives the big fish to be. This is because Santiago being One with all, is most clearly one with the big fish he hooks and latches to the side of his skiff. (Notice how Hemingway uses the same pronoun of “he” for both the old man and the fish so that by his usage of this common pronoun they intertwine into each other, as being one and the same.) Time and again, Santiago talks of or thinks of the fish as “a great fish” who has noble strength, and with this strength and greatness he is “strange.” And Santiago is just the like fish: noble, strong and strange. Yet on the earth plane, Santiago appears to be a humbled old man, even considered a bit of an outcast by his village. He is in fact like Moses, “a stranger in a strange land” in that he is not a native of Cuba, but was born in the Canary Islands off of Spain. But more than this, Santiago is strange in that he has that dignity of knowing who he is, what he was born for: to fish. He knows this with a confidence of humility. The narrator describes this humility: “He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.” (p. 13)

Santiago is also “strange” in his vision. He even says this to the boy as they talk about how “turtle-ing” can hurt the eyes. The boy questions the old man about this: “’But you went turtle-ing for years…and your eyes are good.’” The old man replies: “’I am a strange old man.’” It has been said of The Old Man and the Sea that Hemingway “peppers” his narrative with references to Santiago’s good eyesight. But it’s not just “good eyesight” that Santiago has. He has clarity of vision. Clarity is focused thought that makes it so that we see and discern things more clearly from the perspective of focused thought and attention. When Santiago declares that he knows what he is born to do, which is to fish, and focuses all of his thought, energy and attention on getting the big fish – denying himself the pleasure of thinking about baseball and refusing to give in to self-pity or hopelessness – he is visioning his vision. At times he waivers – of course, he is human! But the old man is not only human, he is a man who recognizes that part of him that is eternal, that Spirit that lives in him as him. Santiago tells himself this truth when he gets wearied: “But man is not made for defeat…” “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (p. 103)