For example, Hemingway conveys one of the novella's central themes by repeatedly yoking religious conviction with a belief in luck. These repeated images and allusions, juxtaposed so often, suggest more than an appropriate sketch of Cuba's Catholic culture, affection for games of chance, and passion for baseball. Both religion and luck rely on ritual and have the power to engender the hope, dreams, faith, absorption, and resolution that ultimately take people beyond themselves. Supporting these repeated images and allusions is the repetition of certain rhythms and sentence structures that signal a kind of ritual or catechism in, for example, the conversations between Santiago and Manolin or the description of Santiago's precise actions in his fishing or in laying out the fish that will nourish him.
Hemingway the journalist also relies on resonances from historical and factual references to enrich the story and advance its themes — a technique used by T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. For example, the novella's many baseball references enabled critics such as C. Harold Hurley and Bickford Sylvester to determine the exact dates in September when the story takes place; to infer a great deal about Cuba's cultural, economic, and social circumstances at the time; and to establish Manolin's exact age. These references do more than provide background information, establish the story's cultural context, and advance the plot. These references also indirectly reveal the characters' motivation, inform the dialogue, and uncover the story's integral thematic dimensions.
