Old Man Conflict

The Old Man and the Sea Essay The Old Man and the Sea is a book created my Ernest Hemingway. Santiago, he has nothing to be happy about. The story is about a fisherman, Santiago, has not caught a fish in eighty-four days. He goes out farther than the other fishermen to catch a fish. He hooks a huge marlin, and the story takes us through the struggles of him trying to bring the marlin in. The younger fishermen do not care for him, he is unlucky, and nature does not want him to succeed in fishing. Even though we cannot see it, this just gives Santiago more determination. Throughout the novel Santiago faces three conflicts, Santiago versus younger fisherman (man versus man), Santiago versus Santiago (man versus self), and Santiago versus nature (man versus nature). He defeats all these challenges these conflicts cause.

"He knew that if he could not slow down with a steady pressure the fish could take out all the line and brake it" (Hemingway 63). The fish break away from Santiago at any point now. He has not caught a fish in eighty-four days and counting. What caused that, nature did. Santiago has to beat nature if he wants to catch this fish. The fish can break away at any moment. Nature also does not want Santiago to survive nor let him have the entire fish. "The old man knew he was dead but the shark would not accept it" (Hemingway 102). The shark keeps on attacking the fish. Sharks keep coming taking away more and more of the fish. What that does is lower the amount of money he will make from the fish. In the end he goes from being able to make three-hundred dollars to zero. The sharks hurt Santiago badly too. Nature does not want Santiago to succeed, but he does. The man versus nature conflict caused him to catch a huge fish, but it also caused him to not make any