The Old Man and the Sea: DiMaggio

          "I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today" (Hemingway 97). In The Old Man and the Sea, the old man often speaks of the great DiMaggio. Joe DiMaggio was a very famous baseball player in the 1940’s, and was a very big role model for many people. In the   novel, Santiago reads about DiMaggio’s statistics in the newspaper. This proves how big of a player he was, that his scores and statistics were in papers in Cuba and even elderly men enjoy reading about it (Hemingway 22). Throughout the rest of the novel DiMaggio’s role is reoccurring in Santiago’s story. While on his five day trip, Santiago has a lot of time to think and talk to himself. He often talks to himself, and in these conversations he speaks about what DiMaggio would do if he was put in that situation. He also ponders what DiMaggio would think about the old man in his situation and if he would be impressed. These examples show how great of an influence DiMaggio was on the people of the forties. Role models such as these can shape the way a person acts and thinks because of the way the role model acts themselves. People with influences such as these do not come along often, because today’s role models are not nearly as well behaved and respectable as the ones in the past. Famous and popular people today should take note of DiMaggio’s example because we can change children of today if they grow up seeing respectable and kind people. People like Santiago prove how much of an influential famous people can be. "But I must have the confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel" (Hemingway 68).

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.