Literature in the News: Warning, The Old Man and the Sea Contains Fishing

Western Society has reached a level of absurdity.  A University in Scotland has put a warning label on Earnest Hemingway’s great short novel, The Old Man and theSea.  From the Daily Mail: “University warns woke students that Ernest Hemingway's classic novel Old Man and the Sea contains graphic scenes... of FISHING”  

 

It is a story of one man’s heroic struggle against the elements and often viewed as a metaphor for life itself. But Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel The Old Man And The Sea is the latest victim of today’s woke standards, with students warned that it contains ‘graphic fishing scenes’.

 

Successive TV and film adaptations of the 1952 classic have been awarded U and PG certificates, suitable for children, but a content warning has been issued to History and Literature students at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, an area renowned for its fishing industry.

 

Mary Dearborn, the author of Ernest Hemingway, A Biography, said: ‘This is nonsense. It blows my mind to think students might be encouraged to steer clear of the book.

Can I ask, what did you expect from a book titled, “The Old Man and the Sea”?  Second, what is wrong with fishing?  More from the article:

Jeremy Black, emeritus professor of history at the University of Exeter, added: ‘This is particularly stupid given the dependency of the economy of the Highlands and Islands on industries such as fishing and farming.

 

'Many great works of literature have included references to farming, fishing, whaling, or hunting. Is the university seriously suggesting all this literature is ringed with warnings?’

 

The content warning was revealed in documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday under Freedom of Information laws.

Do yourself a favor, and read Hemingway’s classic.  It’s one of Hemingway’s best and led to him winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Here's a wonderful animation of the novel's basic story.

What’s next?  Warnings on every book. 

Let’s have some fun and create some potential warnings for some great books.

1984 by George Orwell: Warning: There’s a mean Big Brother.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Warning: A young man goes beserk.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: Warning: Adultery suggested.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: Warning: Climate denier attacks wind mill.

Othello by William Shakespeare: Warning: Racist portrayal of mixed marriage.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë: Warning: Passionate affair transcends death.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger: Warning: Teenager in angst is anti social.

We have become a bunch of ninnies.