【正文】 t they lovely? Eat them good now and then there is the tuna. Don?t be shy, fish. Eat them.? ”(The Old Man and the Sea, Page3132) With patient the old man faces the silent before the battle. Next is the contest of the strength. The old man “swing with each arm alternately on the cord with all the strength of his arm and the pivoted weight of his body.” But “nothing happened. The fish just moved away slowly and the old man could not raise him an inch.” The fish is so big that can pull away the boat to the wider deep sea. At one side is a very old man, and at the other side is unfathomable sea and unknown injuries, the readers can imagine the picture. Hegel ever said, “The great personality and the degree of firmness can only be measured by those of the opponents.” (The Image in Hemingway?s ?The Old Man and the Sea?, Page24) The old man?s admirable courage is also demonstrated by the opponent—the sea and the sharks. On the returning voyage the old man suffers greater challenge: the Marlin?s blood draws the sharks group. The author uses much ink to portray the sharks “wide, flattened, shovelpointed heads now and their whitetipped wide pectoral fins. They were hateful sharks, badsmelling, scavengers as well as killers, and when they were hungry they would bite at an oar or the rudder 青島理工大學(xué)琴島學(xué)院畢業(yè)論文用紙 第 8 頁 of a boat. It was these sharks that would cut the turtle?s legs and flippers off when the turtles were asleep on the surface, and they would hit a man in the water, if they were hungry…” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page93) These portrays aim to describe the old man?s spirit. The harder the fish and the sharks are to defeat, the taller the old man?s image is. The essence of the old man is weak. “Unless sharks e,” he said out. “If sharks e, God pity him and me.” “I wish it had been a dream now and that I had never hooked the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers.” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page89) But “man is not made defeated,” he said, “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page89) “?Ay,? the old man said. ?Galanos. Come on, galanos.? ” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page93) “?Fight them,? he said, ?I?ll fight them until I die.?” “Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page97) The old man challenges the age, and challenges the physical limit. “He felt faint again now but he held on the great fish all the strain that he could. I moved him, he thought. Maybe this time I can get him over. Pull, hands, he thought. Hold up, legs. Last for me, head. Last for me. You never went. This time I will pull him over.” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page78) These words and behaviors all originate from the old man?s desire to the victory and strength. The old man can talk the baseball with the child happily. And he often dreams of the lions, which can express this point strongly. Lions, in the western world, were considered as a symbol of strength and power. When the old man was young, his spirit of daring to be the number one has been accumulated. The author portrays that the old man played the hand game with a great Negro from Casablanca who was the strongest man on the docks, “they had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other?s hand down onto the table.” “He had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. ” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page57) “He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and …” (The Old Man and the Sea, Page59) It?s no doubt that, the age of being full of energy and power has gone and the old man is not stronger than ever before. But from the novel we can see that the old man is so eager to regain the power. He pursues what is called a 青島理工大學(xué)琴島學(xué)院畢業(yè)論文用紙 第 9 頁 eternal thing—dignity of the human. Heroic Behavior in the Actual Battle Definitely a midget in spiritual couldn?t bee an actual giant. If a person has strong will but he takes no actual action, he is still a midget. Santiago doesn?t only have spiritual power, he also prove his power and strength by his action. By describing the process of his fishing the Marlin and fighting with the sharks, Hemingway shows us another characteristic of Santiago as a code hero. That is, to display great tenacity and to show the death—defying spirit in the actual battle. With his exceeding selfconfidence he gets rid of his bad luck and catches the fish which is longer than his skiff. The Marlin is immense and strong. Santiago and the Marlin, neither side is ready to yield. The great fish is also a remarkable and respectable fish. The Marlin is actually towing the skiff behind him. The fish moves steadily and they travels slowly on the calm water. “The contest is to see who can endure longer than the other. By this time Santiago?s straw hat cuts his forehead and he has been without nourishment for hours. But he just drinks a little water, then he rested sitting on the sitting on the unstopped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure”(The American Tradition in Literature, Page117). In the old man?s attitude to the fish there is the type of gallantry and heroism that Hemingway admires. This gallantry, this heroism, is paralleled by the stoical heroism of the great Marlin, like his opponent, neither gives up. In addition, the force exerted by the old man is exactly counter—balanced by the natural force being exerted at this time by the huge hidden fish. Just because the Marlin is as strong minded as Santiago himself, Santiago begins to love and respect the Marlin. Although the Marlin has swallowed the bait, he doesn?t adm