Human aging and resilience in literature

a study of The old man and the sea, by Ernest Hemingway

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on the figuration of human aging in the literary text, noting the issue of resilience, specifically of the character Santiago, from the book The old man and the sea written by Ernest Hemingway. For this purpose, a bibliographical and theoretical research was carried out by analysing the parameters related to the three major forces of literature, mathesis, mimesis and semiosis, described by Roland Barthes, allied to the Foucauldian premise regarding self-care. It is concluded that it is possible to speak of resilience and human aging when relating this praxis to the process of caring of the self, as perceived by Michel Foucault, and that this question is constructed throughout a lifetime, by creating from subjective attitude.