Historic Relevance - The Old Man and The Sea

In reading the book The Old Man and The Sea, one thing that relates to the history of the time period is the mentioning of Joe Dimaggio (Hemingway, 17, 21, 22, etc.).  Seeing that Joe Dimaggio was playing in the thirties, forties, and early fifties, this book had to of taken place in 1951 or 1950, since Joe Dimaggio retired in 1952. (That is just my guess.)  Anyways some say Joe was the greatest baseball player ever, but for Hemingway to mention Dimaggio on so many occassions, it tells me that sports played a significant role in that time period.  In mentioning Joe Dimaggio and the New York Yankees, it makes the book more enjoyable to read for me, because it relates to baseball.
From reading the book,there was one social and behavior issue that I picked up on.  That was that if you were a fisherman with luck you were well liked by all the other fishermen.  Right at the beginning of the book everybody was constantly making fun of Santiago because he had not caught a fish for so long. Also, going along with this point is that everybody seemed to be around each other, except Santiago.  This proves my first theory that if you were lucky you were liked.  They all seemed to be around each other either when it was getting ready to go fishing or going to a bar.  I think that the books symbolic and thematic significance is that, if you persevere through the hard times, suffering, you will be rewarded in the end.  It goes along with Santiago very well in this situation.  He suffered through the agony of not catching any fish for so long, but when he finally did catch the fish, he persevered through the pain, the hunger, and the loneliness and he killed the fish.  You could say, "How was he rewarded?, he ended up losing the fish."  In the end he was rewarded with the fact that he still has the ability to catch fish and he is not going out there for no reason.

"The American Experience | Joe Dimaggio: The Hero's Life." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Web. 13 July 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dimaggio/>.

Bibliography

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.