Old Man and the Sea. Repetition Part 1

Throughout the book the author uses a tactic called repetition. This is meaning the copy or replica of words in the case.("repetition") This is a tactic used to keep the book tied into itself through either meaningless repetition or repetition of important facts to the storyline itself. When using this type of tactic in writing there can be many pro's and con's. The pro's could be; making a story line make more sense, keeping a consistent flow to a story, and even giving the reader a more interest and liking towards the book. The con's could be; giving a reader to much meaningless repetition which would lead them to confusion, lose interest because nothing new is being said, and giving the book a mediocre story line making it unreadable to any good reader. There is a fine line between the two of these making it very hard for authors to use repetition in their writing. In the book the Old Man and the Sea, the author Ernest Hemingway was not afraid to use this tactic! In fact he did not only use repetition, but he used it very frequently throughout the book. He even used more than one subject matter for the repetition. I believe Ernest used the repetition perfectly throughout the book! The reasons being when he would use repetition he would use it more based on a concept, person, or theme. Making it easy for him to add a little more detail or information each time he would repeat that certain subject matter. This kept the repetition flowing but also made it more interesting, even if it had very little to do with the story line itself. Although Hemingway was very good with how he presented the repetition itself, I was not impressed with how well he made it make sense in a story. I felt some of the repetition could have been completely gotten rid of and I would still have the same feelings towards the book. Hemingway should have kept it to the few simple yet important repetitions he had instead of adding the nonsense that only drug me away from the good story line itself.




"repetition." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 02 Aug. 2011. .