A real old man: Aging masculinity and late-life creativity in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

Abstract

There is surprisingly little age-critical research on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952), even though the novella seems like an obvious choice for age studies. This article reviews foundational concepts and approaches in age studies on gender, performativity, creativity and space and brings them into dialog with The Old Man and the Sea. In the first part, the representation of older age and gender is emphasized through an analysis of the intersectional and performative nature of the old man's aging masculinity, including a focus on the aesthetic choices which contribute to the novella's semantic complexity. Building on this analysis, the second part centers on a discussion of late-life creativity and the spatiality of aging, suggesting that practices of “small c” creativity, such as self-talk, are spatially contingent and affect how the novel's hero, Santiago, performs his aging masculinity in different locales, namely in the village and at sea. The final part offers suggestions for further age-critical perspectives on the novella. Taken together, these approaches demonstrate the novella's continuing value and appeal for both academic research—especially age studies—and, more generally, for insight into what it means to age in a dignified way.