A story of killing. A story of respect. (Non)anthropocentric reading of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2025.4.07Keywords:
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, ecocriticism, anthropocentrism, non-anthropocentrismAbstract
Ernest Hemingway certainly earned the reputation of an avid hunter and a passionate bullfighting enthusiast. However, his views on the human relationship with the nonhuman world are not as straightforward as they might initially appear. The Old Man and the Sea, which earned Hemingway the Nobel Prize in 1954, exemplifies this complexity. This article offers an ecocritical reading of The Old Man and the Sea, with a focus on the anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric perspectives. It seeks to characterize the human-animal relationship and to examine the figure of a human presented in the narrative. Additionally, the article provides a biographical perspective on Hemingway, exploring his evolving ecological attitudes.
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