In The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, what is the significance of the story's beginning and ending with dust?

Dust is a prominent symbol in Genesis, the first book (or "creation" book) of the Bible, which states:

"By the sweat of your face / You will eat bread, / Till you return to the ground /Because from it you were taken / For you are dust / And to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19)

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is full of biblical imagery. In fact, some readers see Santiago as a Christ figure- E.I. cutting the palms of his hands on rope as representative of stigmata.

More specifically, though, just as the image of dust is used to symbolize the beginning and end of life, dust marks the beginning and end of Hemingway's story.

The symbol of the dust can work on multiple literary fronts:

1) From the very first paragraph of the novella, our protagonist, Santiago, is characterized as someone struggling against defeat, more specifically, struggling against death as the defeat of life. The opening details suggest that Santiago hasn't caught a fish, and, thus, probably hasn't been fed, the sea beats against his boat fiercely, and the flag on his ship waves in "permanent defeat" (Hemingway, 3). Every force presses on Santiago to die, to return to dust. Therefore, some readers consider Santiago the quintessential example of "Man vs. Nature," in which Santiago would thus be the exemplum of all humanity, and the sea would symbolize the totality of the natural world.

2) The Old Man and the Sea also makes the readership question the incorruptible order of the natural world and social world.The old man suggests that his actions are part of what all people "are born to do." We see a sense of inevitability in the way the world operates, including occupational operations, how someone makes a living. Hemingway may be trying to communicate that there is a unity and inescapability in all things, a principle of life and the order of the world that is immanent, even in the way that people spend their lives- if we were born as dust, we must also die as dust (things don't change).

3) Interestingly, the novella ends with the death of a marlin, not of Santiago. So while the story begins and ends with images of dust, we do not see our protagonist perish. The story may well end with the image of dust in order to make the reader recall the famished, pained, and broken perseverance of Santiago as he battled the sea at the start of the story. The novel makes a narrative loop (or a circle). Santiago will have to return to the place he was at the beginning, despite his great gain. The reader could see Santiago returning to the place where we were introduced to him, on his ship. He will have to return to the ocean, to the search for fishes, to harpooning marlins for a living. This connects to the unbreakable order of all things- Santiago believes people do what "they are born to do," and nothing else. So, although he has achieved a great victory he will go back to the natural order of his own life, he must return to the sea.

Dust is a multifaceted image, in a sense. Although it is a religious idiom, it also bolsters our understanding of Santiago in his quest to pursue the natural rather than social world.