The Old Man and the Sea is a multi-level text, where themes are naturally emerging from each other. The simplest example are relations between Santiago and Manolin that can be considered as tutoring, support, encouragement and so on. More interesting is the theme of Santiago’s attitude to the sea. He refers to it as “la mar”, using the feminine form of the word, while other fishermen call it “el mar”.
Thus, Hemingway marks the controversial nature of the sea, a source of nourishment and hurricanes and sharks at the same time. Santiago loves the sea, he spent all his life in it, he knows it and learns from it, but he also is careful and wary, marking seasons of good and bad weather, looking for winds and signs of hurricanes. The important point is that he is not afraid of it, because everyone is a predator and prey at the same time, and the one once who was a hunter would eventually become a nourishment for other creature.
Listing of themes of The Old Man and the Sea would be incomplete without themes of pride and endurance that thread the whole text. Santiago’s battle with the marlin is the most prominent illustration of these, but a careful reader would notice such small moments as Santiago’s lie about having the food at the very beginning, for example. The old man is nearly starving, but he loathes begging – why should he, when he is an excellent fisher and someday he would catch a big fish? He just finds more ways to carry on, this stubborn and proud strange old man.