A man can be destroyed but not defeated

-----comment of《The old man and the sea》

专业：测控技术与仪器 姓名： 学号： 成绩：

This semester, we saw the movie —《The old man and the sea》. The movie which was adapted from the novel written by Hemingway tells us a story about an old man fight against the nature.

The novel narrates an old fisherman named Santiago didn’t catch a fish after 84 days on the sea. Finally, he made a decision that going fishing to the unfamiliar sea area. Luckily, he discovered a huge marlin. After fierce fighting, he conquered the marlin despite he was exhausted. Drawn the short straw, the smell of marlin’s blood attracted the sharks. Sharks raided the old man and bit the meat of marlin. The old man resisted the attack from the sharks desperately. However, when he went back the harbor, there was only the marlin’s skeleton left. And there were many discussions about the skeleton among people in harbor.

Although the old man failed again and again, he was never disappointed. His calm showed us a matchless strong heart. Despite Santiago is old and miserable, he would never like to quit. He persisted in struggling with the destiny. Sometimes our destiny can not be dominated by us. But we can confront the fate optimistically and accept it calmly.

A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Though our human body can be tormented, our determination can never be encroached. The marlin is a symbol of our dreams. Meanwhile, the sharks represent the setback which we can not avoid. The unpredictable sea looks like our realistic society where a great many people pursue their dreams unremittingly and never give up.

When we pursue our dreams and conquered, whether the marlin is complete or incomplete is nothing, because our significance of life has been reflected in the process of chasing the marlin. On the one hand, the old man is a loser, because his marlin was eaten by sharks at last. He got nothing in the end. On the other hand, Santiago is a winner that he didn’t compromise and surrender to the sea, marlin and sharks even if he has used all his weapons up. The old man was a lonely traveler on the dream road, but he is also not alone, because his strong will accompanies with him. No matter what result the old man got, his spirit is esteemed by us, because he brings us the great confidence that a brave man has.

Our life is full of rough and misfortune, only if we have a confident mind to meet the challenges bravely and tenaciously can we be real winners. We are supposed to believe the faith that a man is not born to be defeated. Even though we are faced with the unconquerable nature, we could also obtain moral victory. Maybe the result is failure. We could witness the procedure that an ordinary person becomes an upright man.

Whatever the adversity is, we have to be indomitable and not to capitulate. We are supposed to believe that we can be destroyed but not defeated.

老人与海读后感（英文）