An Analysis of Santiago’s Characterization as Reflection Value of Life in The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

This research deals with the novel The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The main issue of this research is a set of values of life reflected in the main character. In finding the set of values of life two questions are proposed 1. How are major characters described in this story? 2. What the value of life are reflected in the main character?
Qualitative research is conducted in this study applying content analysis method. The source of data of this study is a novel entitled The Old Man and the Sea written by Ernest Hemingway. The methods of data collections were reading, in order to gain reliability, the researcher read and reread the novel carefully and then recorded the data. Since this study focuses on how Hemingway builds up Santiago’s characterization, the writer uses a New Criticism approach to analyze the data.
Finally, this study found two important elements to indicate the old man keep fighting against the societies. The first is emotionality of Manolin to the old man which keep help Santiago even his parents forbid him with Santiago again. The second is memory of Santiago himself while he was young as a great fisherman to keep him up even get judgement from the society.