LIONS PLAYING FRENZY: THE SURRENDER OF ANTHROPOGENIC ENIGMA IN HEMINGWAY’S THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Author Name: Pratik Mahapatra

Volume: 01 &  Issue:

Country: India

DOI NO.: 08.2020-25662434 DOI Link: http://www.doi-ds.org/doilink/03.2021-35493148/UIJIR

Affiliation:

1. Department of English, Prabhat Kumar College, Contai (Affiliated to Vidyasagar University), India

ABSTRACT

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961)- the other name of the epitomising some of the extraordinary and sometimes, super-human attributions. From the careful reading of the series of Hemingway novels, and often short stories, one thing is insightfully clear; all his protagonists are supremely embedded with the seed of existential life-view and exclusive traits of personality. Be it Robert Jordan’s solidarity in the Spanish Civil War (17 July, 1936 – 1 April, 1939) in For Whom the Bell Tolls(1940) or the resilience of Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea (1952), existentialism is the apt lens to envision the insight of the psyche of these characters. This, however, is a dissertation, which does take up Santiago, the protagonist, and his submission of anthropomorphic superiority. This humble attempt eventually renders itself as an endeavour, which relates and interprets the role of the lions in Santiago’s dreams and commemorations with the essentially existential outlook of lifefrom a post humanistic perspective. Lions are the most ambassadorial of all the felines and, besides its lovers and enthusiasts of several spectrums, they have always been a supreme choice for the literary renderers as well. Hemingway himself had been so fascinated by the lions from his visit to Africa that he could not resist himself from presenting the magnanimity of these felines in disparate modules. In this discourse on The Old Man and the Sea, mine is the effort deal with our central character of this modern novella, going deep inside his psyche and ally the notion of lions with his ambition and the daunting journey that he embarks.Post humanism is one of the latest area of inquiries which is gradually expanding itself to be superior to conventionally accepted supremacy of humanism and, eventually we will figure out our modern-day protagonist in that primitive ambit, rendering his humanly pride humble before the post humanistic epicentre of his dream-lions.

Key words: Hemingway, Protagonist, Personality, Bravado, Existentialism, Post humanism, Submission, Animality, Dream, Lion