【摘要】《老人与海》是美国作家海明威后期的一部重要作品。这部作品体现了作者的创作原则，成为一部在世界文学史上有重要价值而为人们所珍视的经典之作。这部小说是海明威“冰山原则”的一个注脚。其描绘的场景是生活中常见的场景，然而，它的象征意义却直指生命本身。本文通过对小说中具体象征的分析，具体来说即是对“圣地亚哥”、“马诺林”、“大海”等几种物象的分析。并且简单分析了象征的功能，以便于大家能够更好的理解这部小说。 
　　【关键词】《老人与海》 象征艺术 冰山原则 
　　【Abstract】The Old Man and the Sea is Earnest Hemingway’s major work in his later career.The book is regard as the most important work of Hemingway’s writing principle and classical one for its literary value.This novel is the footnote of Hemingway’s iceberg principle，and it depicted the settings and images which are common in life，but the symbolic meanings point directly the life itself.This paper intends to find out the hidden value by studying the symbolic meaning in the novel，such as “the old man”，“the little kid Manolin”，and “the sea”.And it briefly analyzes the functions of symbolism so that it can help one to have a better understand about the novel. 
　　【Key Word】The Old Man and the Sea； symbolism； iceberg principle 
　　Introduction 
　　Ernest Hemingway（1899-1961）is one of the most important American writers in the twentieth century.The Old Man and the Sea was the peak of his literary creation.On one hand，he inherits the traditional realism of Mark Twain； on the other hand，he innovates the thoughts and ways in creating，and forms his unique style.The Old Man and the Sea was Hemingway’s masterpiece in his later career，and it was one of his important works in which he used the principle of creating freely.Hemingway gave up the ways of describing the details in social life，and adopted the unique systematic symbolism. 
　　1.The implication of iceberg beneath the water 
　　Hemingway compares the writing to the iceberg floating on the surface of sea.The reader can learn the implying meaning from the 1/8 of the ice berg above water and feelings of the author from 7/8 of the iceberg under water.If Hemingway only wrote a novel for fishing and told us a story of an old fisherman，，The Old Man and the Sea couldn’t be his masterpiece.“I always try to write，” he put it，“on the principle of the iceberg.There’s seven eighths of it under water for every part that shows.Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg –” 
　　2.The symbolism reflected in the novel 
　　Hemingway is a master of using symbolism，which is the most striking feature in The Old Man and the Sea.“A symbol is a thing that refers to or suggests more than its literal meaning.It is an object，animate or inanimate，which goes beyond the objective referent by evoking or suggesting to the reader a meaning on another level，a meaning beyond itself”.So in this paper，I will make a brief analysis of its symbolic meaning.