The Old Man and the Sea: Modernist Literature Modernist literature is a break with the old ways of writing from the 19th Century. Modernist wrote in new forms and styles. Ernest Hemingway was a modernist writer. One of his famous novels was The Old Man and the Sea. In The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway demonstrates many of the characteristics of Modernism. One characteristic of Modernist literature is to go into the character's consciousness to find his complicated emotions. Throughout most of this novel the main character Santiago is alone in his boat with only his thoughts. The re