Old man and the Sea-Q. 8

The responsibilities that take place in this book are what is common to this day. The fishing was primarily a man's job of any gender and bar tending was also a man's job. These were the only two jobs that actually took place in this story so it wasn't hard to think about these answers.

Many of the women in the 1950's would stay at home doing laundry, cleaning the house, and preparing meals for the family. The son's and men of the families would go out and find work in fields or in this case fishing for larger boats that needed cheap manual labor. Fishing was popular because the workers could use their earned wages and immediately turn around and buy fresh fish for dinner. Since the Civil War took place in the mid 1800's, there was no racial discrimination between blacks and whites. When I think about what life would have been like, I feel it was a long time ago, but truth be told some of our parents were born only a couple years later. When I think about it this way, I have trouble wondering why I thought it was so old. Thinking more I realized that the women didn't stay home as much and would go out and get work too. Along with there not being any real difference in the importance between men and women, they didn't work in fields as much anymore either. They would find work in stores and different occupations all around their city.

This novel does accurately reflect the actual history and what went on during the time period this book was set in. One of the major characters in history that played a huge role in this book was Joe DiMaggio since he was Santiago's idol. I thought that the time period the book took place in was a lot older and different than what it is now, but when I think about it there aren't very many major differences. Considering that reading a fairly modern book was a cool change in what I'm use to reading for summer English.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print