Hemingway compared his creation to an iceberg, and used the iceberg principle to vividly summarize his artistic creation style and skills.He once said: I always try to write it according to the iceberg principle.Of everything that appears, seven-eighths is below the surface of the water, and you can omit anything you know, and it will only make your iceberg thicker.This is the part that doesn't show up. We know that the omission mentioned by Hemingway is usually reflected in the abbreviated selection of event plots, so as to achieve accumulation, but also in the simplicity of image, the hidden theme, the implicit emotion, the economy of words and the simplicity and simplicity of artistic style.These are all consciously and intentionally done by Hemingway.So in Hemingway's works, is the seven-eighths of the iceberg below the surface of the iceberg still hiding personal unconscious desires that the writer himself has not noticed but still exists? From the analysis of Santiago's dreams and unconscious words, we can It can be seen that it is a representation of the substitution of Hemingway's own desire.

First, Santiago's dreams and fantasies express the old man's own unconscious wishes: he dreams of Africa and lions, and fantasizes about the great old DiMaggio, corns and cockfighting.The old man's unconsciousness is intentionally constructed by Hemingway.According to Lacan's Freudian theory, the unconscious works in the substitutionary displacement of metaphors and metonyms, evading the disguise of consciousness but expressing itself in the form of dreams, jokes and art.In dreams, cohesion and displacement cover up unconscious content, just as metaphor and metonymy cover the motives of the subject's desires when one uses language.In narrative creation (in this case Santiago's narrative), unconscious content coalesces into metaphor and replaces it with metonymy.The reader's task is to discover how surface discourse conceals deeper meanings, how signifiers are decomposed into explicit signifieds and implicit signifieds.If the dream is the manifest but also the disguised mirror of the unconscious, the novel is the mirror of its language.

Santiago's dream of a lion is primarily a function of his unconscious desires, but the text illustrates Lacan's theory that the unconscious is as constituted as language.As a signifier, the word lion has both denotative and connotative meanings.Its meaning is an animal, but it is the king of beasts, so it is above the animal hierarchy.We can re-express the old man's dream in words.Since the lion as a metaphor is the main content of the dream, then Santiago is the lion and he is the king, because dreaming of a lion is the primary guarantee of self-personality.But Santiasan felt unfortunate. He saw his own age, frailty and incompetence in the eyes of other fishermen, which made him feel a sense of failure and an anxiety about the repressed primitive castration.He could not reconcile himself to this unbearable situation, and had to bet his luck that he would die in the contest: I would fight them (the sharks) to the death.

The metaphor that Santiago is a lion expresses a semantic shift from a present sign (the lion) to an absent sign (the king).This symbolic meaning of absence or invisibility is reinforced by the reference to baseball champion DiMaggio and himself wrestling a black giant in a Cienfuegos tavern.Here Santiago is implied to be the champion.It is axiomatic that fantasy is a more overt expression of desire than dreams, and it is only natural that Santiago fantasizes about baseball games and DiMaggio's corns and equates his corns with his own pain.But in Santiago's fantasy, there is a metonymic slip from DiMaggio to corns to cockfighting.DiMaggio had corns, and the rooster (one of two fighting cocks) had flesh-spans on its legs, and both fought to the death in spite of pain.It's the mark of a champion.Such metonymy slips into a syllogism.Marlins fight to the death.So it is as much a champion as DiMaggio and the fighting cock.But Santiago beat the Marlins, so he was the champion.

In Derrida's view, the realm of symbolic activities is actually a realm of free play, that is, a realm of infinite substitutions and substitutions in a closed body composed of finiteness.A signifier can have two or more signifieds and signified objects. We can use the picture below to represent the extended meaning of the signifier lion.We know that the main subject of Santiago's dream was the lion.Indeed, the last line of the story was that the old man was dreaming of a lion.So, although the old man was physically destroyed, his dreams, which expressed his desires and identity, showed that his honor and pride were intact.Santiago sleeps in his hut with his arms outstretched in the pose of the cross.His ordeal, because of its pain and fortitude, has been likened to the torture of the Crucifixion of Christ.At the end of the story, the image of the crucifixion merges with the unconscious, embodying a hero who accepts the meaning of life and death: now he rests in peace, knowing that he is behaving like a champion, he is once more a lion.Although he was dying, he was happy because he believed that the eighteen-foot-long marlin skeleton restored his identity in the eyes of everyone, and the expressions in the eyes of the fishermen reflected his victory.Indeed, despite his old age, his special status had not been lost: the little boy Malorin attended to his needs again, bringing him coffee, newspapers, and plasters for his servant's hand.

Santiago regains his powers.His reasons for going fishing in the high seas were answered.In the metonymic slippage of the work, the old man is compared to the winning rooster on the verge of death.The rooster as a metaphor functions as a metaphor and a simile.The signifier rooster has two signifieds: the rooster and the male genitalia.The phallic signifies power and, according to Lacan's interpretation, also symbolizes the king, and for Santiago it is an unconscious symbol of his restored manliness and dignity. Santiago's unconscious desire to be a champion is actually a metaphor for Hemingway's own desire.Hemingway loved struggle and hard work all his life, and if he doesn't fight, he wins. Even if he loses, he must win spiritually. He is often the champion and master of a certain event.In addition, Santiago kept fishing, and Hemingway insisted on writing. This kind of repetitive behavior that had to be done exceeded Freud's pleasure principle, because they required long periods of sufficient endurance and were painful.But these compulsive repetitions prove themselves to be beloved activities; Santiago believes that fishing is what he was born to do; Hemingway said: Except for one's work, life is not worth a penny .This repetitive behavior associated with the death instinct is a more primitive, fundamental, and meaningful drive.Fishing as a repetitive act, or as a metaphor for narrative transcends the need for pleasure or survival.Santiago, compelled to prove himself as a champion fisherman, is engaging in a practical, creative, imperative repetition, as Hemingway is determined to prove himself as Nobel Prize material.

On the other hand, Santiago embodies the symbolism of death.By acknowledging and accepting the meaning of death, he comes to terms with death but also with life.On the voyage back to Havana, the marlin was tied to the boat, and the shark hit and tore the marlin. Santiago was injured and finally exhausted in the fight against the vicious shark.In the middle of the night, Santiago returned to the small port of his hometown and dragged back the eighteen-foot-long fish skeleton.Traditionally, skeletons mean death, and sailing with death is actually accepting the existence of a symbol of death.Lacan said that before death, everyone must accept their own discursive relationship with death and others in order to heal the divided subject.Santiago states himself, explains himself, acknowledges his fate, accepts death, and fulfills his mission.Don't think too much about it, old guy.He (Santiago) said loudly, let’s go down this line, and face it bravely when things come.He thought of sin, pride, killing, big fish, Malorin, what it was supposed to be to be a man; and he thought of baseball, great old DiMaggio, corns, gamecocks, wrestling, the sun The stars, the moon.He likes to think about everything he's been through.Old man, you think too much.He said it aloud, but Santiago's thoughts were Hemingway's words.Hemingway also narrates his own story throughout his life; he once said: My whole life has been written in my book. Hemingway explored death all his life, described the world he saw truthfully, and was keen on expressing strangeness, Themes of violence, crime, heroism and death.In his later years, due to multiple diseases, he could not continue to write as before. In the end, he went to death and accepted death with special courage and way.

Although Hemingway wrote within a religious tradition, it is clear that Santiago wished to replace religious codes emphasizing resignation, humility, and self-denial with more fundamental virtues emphasizing pride, honor, and carnage.The marlin that Santiago killed was the religious law that Hemingway wanted to replace.Hemingway's conscious and unconscious narratives are mixed together, endowed with complex and multi-layered meanings, but Santiago's desires and the values ​​he embodies are clearly Hemingway's desires and values.What the other's discourse needs is only a metonymic substitution, that is, substituting fishing for writing, in order to show a champion again.