Environmental Concerns in "Ceremony" and "The Old Man and the Sea"

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Ceremony/The Old Man and the Sea
QN. In either or both Ceremony and The Old Man and the Sea, how do characters relate to the environment? What does this relationship indicate about care?
In these two stories, the environment is a crucial factor. The first claim to this essay is on the settings of both stories; that they both revolve around the environment and environmental issues. The setting itself of the Old Man and the Sea is on the sea, which is abundant in nature. The entire environment surrounding Santiago seems to be in perfect unison throughout the text. One particular environment concern here is how humans have become brutal murderers of the environment. ‘But it is good that we do not have to kill the sun or the moon or the stars’ (Hemingway 36). People have also become brutal murderers of the environment in the Ceremony. The setting of the story is encompassed around an endless six-year drought and how they try and tackle the situation and eradicate the drought. This text depicts a lot of warnings about the constant exploitation of the environment by society (Dhanashri 63). The text has a very opposing view to the customarily recognized view of capitalism towards the environment as solely a source of natural resources to be converted to finished goods sold in the commercial market.
The second claim shows the outward concern for the environment by particular individuals in both stories. Santiago in the Old Man and the Sea is quite friendly with the living organisms, like when a bird is not afraid of him and approaches him. ‘Stay at my house if you like, bird’ (Hemingway 31). Santiago tries to converse with the bird as he would to a similar human being. This pity for the bird raises the view of the animals as organisms pushing through suffering, just like the old man. The old man also has a massive concern for turtles. He pities them as they are butchered mercilessly by other fishermen. ‘He was sorry for them all even the great trunk backs that were as long as the skiff and weighed a ton’ (Hemingway 17). The old man showed empathy for these creatures as he witnessed their hearts continue to beat even hours after being slaughtered. He could envision his heart could beat similarly. Tayo, in the Ceremony, blames himself for the consequences of the environmental drought. He also has a deep care for the environment. He sees this as possible by his action of cursing the rain at the time he was still serving in the war. ‘It was all superstition, believing that the rain had stopped coming because he had cursed it’ (Silko 166). This was common of how the native Indians perceived the changes to the environment. The native culture views the environmental changes as consequences of forgetting the equivalent value of nature to human beings. This is a high value of the environment by the Indians. The white people's disregard for the environment thus translated to the ongoing drought in the area.
The third claim is about the effects of the environment to the lives of the characters in the two stories. The old man in the Old Man and the sea highly values the sea. The sea is his means of livelihood ...