Professor Wang Li, a young talented teacher, posted an article on China website entitled "The Old Man is the Sea", in which she indicated my attitude life and engaging demeanor by referring to Hemingway's famous work.

Wang Li wrote, Mr. Wang is an " Old friend ", Octogenarian, allow me to address him as it is. We never knew each other in fact. Just because he is senior, I call him old friend; just because of my feeling that we have seemingly acquainted for long; just because I esteem the old; just because he is friendly as being old. Old Friend seems to be Santiago in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", he is an old man, he is also the sea. In order to testify himself being a strange old man, in order to testify he had firm courage and will, Santiago completed a task only for himself that other people never completed. For the sake of honour and dignity Santiago certainly wanted to catch a big fish. Old friend is always working to catch that big fish called honour and dignity. Old friend, Octogenarian, is always displaying calm and grace with which he treats his sacred life,

as old friend knows " it is what a man must do",

as old friend knows " all my life the early sun has hurt my eyes, he thought,yet they are still good",

as old friend knows "a big fish must be somewhere",

as old friend knows "man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated",

as old friend knows "now is no time to think of something else, and it is the time to think of only one thing,that which I was born for",

as old friend knows "man is not much beside the great birds and beasts".  Hemingway described that the birds dipped slanting their wings for the dive and swinging wildly as he followed the flying fish and the creeping turtles displayed the great values with their elegance and speed on the sand,

as old friend knows "Pain does not matter to a man".

Hemingway, the famous novelist of America, once wrote in The Man and the Sea saying  " Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. " The old man Santiago is endowed with this optimistic attitude towards life-courage, confidence, dignity and never giving up. The novel also deals with the problem of " grace " and its revelation to people - never giving up; confidence; grace under pressure.

The quality of Santiago is composed of pressure and grace. Pressure is the premise, only under pressure can one's graceful demeanor display.

At the beginning of the novel, Santiago had gone eighty four days without catching a fish that became the laughingstock of his small village. This is an affront to a masterful fisherman. A young boy, Manolin, stayed with the old man, but after the fortieth luckless day, the boy's father told his son to go in another boat, leaving the skiff of which the sail was patched with four sacks and furled like the flag of permanent defeat. When the boy left the old man and fished with another, they caught three good fishes in the first week. The boy's good luck formed obvious contrast with the old man's  ill luck.  When the old man hooked the biggest marlin never seen in the Gulf Stream, he was alone. He endured a long and grueling struggle with the marlin and felt lonely and helpless. 
 

We find Santiago definitely and finally failed, however, he kept self-composed and had confidence in his dignity. So even having got nothing in the first 84 days, he continued to go out to fish.

Santiago's commitment to sailing out further than any fisherman had testified his confidence to the depth. It also showed his confidence to change his bad luck, because he clearly knew what he was born for. Yes, he was born for the conquering of the sea. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. It means the old man's heart or soul is inconvincible. In order to protect his dignity, he finally summarized the famous motto "Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated".

This is obviously the declaration to the difficulties and adversities. That's the spirit!  It encourages human to fight for dignity. 
     

When fighting with the marlin, he was driven through the two opposite forces between certainty and uncertainty. Sometimes Santiago felt lonely and helpless,but he conquered all of them ultimately.  His mention of the boy several times proved that he wanted to overwhelm loneliness and enhanced courage and force to fight.

His bodily aches attested to the fact that he is well matched and that the fish is a worthy opponent.     

The old man conveys us that we human beings should keep graceful even under fierce pressure, should face the failures bravely, and keep the spirit of unyielding integrity.