Old Man And The Sea Essay

Often in literature, we are presented with a character that struggles against powerful forces or obsticles that have a significant effect on that character. In the novella The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, an old man, a little boy, and a marlin of the world, come together in this great novella. Each one of them has to struggle with a greater force. Sometimes it is solved quickly, and other times, it takes a good chunk of the story for the character to overcome the greed challenge before them. The person that struggles the most is Santiago, the old man. He must struggle with catching the marlin, doing all the work by himself, and battling sharks that are trying to steal his catch.

Santiago must battle with the world’s greatest and biggest marlin in the whole world. He must suffer with all the torture that is being bestowed upon him. His hands become bloody prunes grasping to the fishing line tied to his future. The only thing keeping him going is his knowledge that he will be well fed and healthy for the next few months. "A man can be destroyed, but not defeated."(103) He will never stop, and he will never be defeated by the great marlin.

Santiago is a very old man, and he is all alone on the boat, "Aloud he said, 'I wish I had the boy.'"(51) Santiago is a very old man; he can’t do all the manual labor that he used to when he was younger. He needed the boy, but he does not have him. This is a challenge that he faces because manolins parents does not think that the old man is lucky, and will not let him go with him.

Santiago is one of the greatest fishermen in the whole world after he catches the marlin single handedly. After he catches it, he must return h0me with it tied to the side of the boat. The worst part of it all is that the marlin is letting off a lot of blood, which is attracting sharks.” It was an hour before the first shark hit him."(100) Santiago battles dozens of sharks over a period of a couple days, each one of them taking a chunk of meat from his glorious prize. But in the end, the great marlin is reduced to nothing more than a big skeleton. “‘They beat me, Manolin,'he said, 'they truly beat me' "(124) this shows that he knows that he has lost, and there is nothing that he can do about it.

Santiago must suffer through many struggles against many powerful forces in Ernest Hemingway's novella, The Old Man and the Sea. He struggles with battling the great marlin for days, doing all the work all by himself, and battling sharks for days on his long trip home. He struggled for days, but got nothing out of the whole thing.