An Examination of Santiago’ Loneliness in The Old Man and the Sea in the Viewpoint of Confucianism

In Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, the greatness of Santiago is remarkable, but it is also evident that he deserves our pity for he is lonely. This paper attributes the loneliness in Santiago to the following factors: his lack of balance between his knowledge and his societal recognition, his lack of family caring, lack of material pleasure for an old man, failure in his effort to catch a fish, less communication with the time, aging and the profession involving in killing the fish. And the deeper reason behind it lies in his lack of aim and sincerity. Rooted in Confucianism, the Confucian scholar and officer Wang Yangming put foreword the concept of “sincerity” and “working hard on things one engages in” in order to make a break-though in one’s ideological progress. By comparison we find Santiago lacks faith and greater life aim in his life, while Chinese Confucian scholars from their childhood have a definite life purpose, that is to be a sage or virtuous person. During their life, they work for this aim, which can be summarized by three buildings “building up one’s moral, building up one’s feat, and building up one’s works.”