how would you compare the old man in A Clean Well Lighted Place and old man and the sea?

Question

How Would you compare the old man in Hemingway's a clean well lighted place and the old man and the sea?

Answer 1

They're very similar characters in that (besides both being old) they have come to expect very little from life and want only a few simple things: a clean, well-lighted place and a dream of lions on the beach.
Life has treated them harshly, stripping them of all their illusions. They both believe in little or nothing anymore but they both have "grace under pressure" since they
continue on, despite all their losses.
But the old man of "The Old Man and the Sea" (Santiago) is a much more well-developed stronger, more enduring character than the one in "A Clean, Well-lighted Place." The latter character is barely hanging on, having attempted suicide (by hanging, but having been saved from death by his daughter), whereas Santiago still has a lot of fight left in him. Although the sharks destroy his great catch, he
accepts his fate, and you know that he will go out again the next day to try yet again.
Santiago is a fully-realized character. His strength of will is all that holds together his failing body. The great marlin that he struggles with is like a true fish, lacking personality or anthropomorphism, but just a powerful beast that does not want to die.
The old man in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" shows how man can survive - barely - "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
Santiago shows how the human spirit can do more than survive; it can triumph.

Answer 2

All the people who ever lived were part of the sea metphorically if not in reality. They are the "Sea and the waves roaring" "The Sea of nations" This poem gives you the feeling of watching time disappear over the horizon while the waves bring back memories of people who have lived before. They leave their memories and stories behind depositing them like tiny grains of sand on the shore.