Read this quotation from Hemingway himself about The Old Man and the Sea. "No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things."

Do you think Hemingway "made them good and true enough" to have symbolic significance? Write a well-developed paragraph describing your interpretation of either the old man, the boy, the sea, or the marlin (choose one). Be sure to include a thesis-like statement which is supported with sufficient details.