The Monster of Cojímar: A Meditation on Hemingway, Sharks, and War

Abstract

The essay concerns a tremendous white shark called the Monster of Cojímar, captured in spring 1945, when a traumatized Hemingway returned to Cuba from World War II. In a letter about the Monster, he draws disturbing parallels between sharks and men, suggesting that Cojímar’s wartime shark industry and the horrifying role played by sharks in the war at sea made a profound impression on him. His postwar experiments with writing about sharks, killing, and sin suggest that his late masterwork, The Old Man and the Sea , may be a story about the war in which “the war is never mentioned” ( SL 798).