The Old Man and the Sea Essay

The world today is plagued with many hardships that average people must overcome. Whether they are personal or more widely spread, we find a way to live each passing day and make it to the next unharmed, even when the situation seems pessimistic. Any struggles in our daily lives tend to take a huge toll on us, and we must carry all of the baggage left from our experiences. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, an old fisherman named Santiago must face several challenges while he is trying desperately to catch the fish of a lifetime. Throughout the novella, he must use his past knowledge as well as sheer endurance to get past the obstacles that are standing between him and his prized marlin.

Santiago faced his first challenge after he had been out at sea all day and into the first night, at which point his left hand cramped while holding the fishing line. The mood in the boat tenses as he analyzes the situation, and he says to it, "What kind of a hand is that? Cramp if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good"(58), but his attempts to coax the hand into functioning were unresponsive. Throughout his lifetime, Santiago had always felt that only his right hand was good to him, and that the left was forever cursed to be the weaker of the two. Now he must trust his good hand to do all of the work against the marlin's determined swimming, and he is worried because he thinks that not even his better half can capture this creature alone. The cramping of Santiago's left hand in his time of need shows how even the removal of the cursed half can be a devastating blow on the task being faced.

For most of the novella, Santiago is on his skiff for a total of four days, which is a very long period of time for a man of his age to be without food, sleep, and barely any water. In fact, "the sun was rising for the third time since he had put to sea when the fish started to circle" (85), and even after the marlin was caught it took another day and a half for Santiago to get back to shore. Despite the extended time at sea, he never once thought about deriving from his devotion of capturing the marlin for his own. His patience and determination to succeed after so many hours of waiting shows that he is not willing to let anything stand in the way of him and his prize, and that his strong will won't let him stray from his task. His optimism is restored once he finally sets his eyes on the fanciful marlin.

Perhaps the most disappointing struggle that Santiago had to deal with was after the marlin's capture, and it was tied to his skiff. The first shark appeared, and although Santiago fought him off as best he could,the aggressive shark still managed to get a bite out of the fish, which left a bloody trail for countless other sharks to follow. He refused to let these creatures get the best of him and the marlin, and so avowed, "[I'll] fight them. I'll fight them until I die" (115). But his lack of energy and weaponry finished him, and the marlin became shark food. His prized marlin had become nothing more than an eighteen foot skeleton and the marlin's spear, which would be worth nothing in the market if he tried to selling it. This is his biggest challenge and disappointment because he spent so many days out at sea for a fish that had been snatched out from under him, and now he has to make up for eighty-eight days of no income. This shows the irony of the marlin because it did allow Santiago to have the pleasure of catching it, but it would not go so far as to be sold to an arrogant and unworthy buyer.

Santiago's challenges throughout the course of the story were often much more life-threatening and critical than the one that average people face, but we can all sympathize with his reactions and feelings towards his struggles. When Santiago's left hand cramped on the line, it symbolized how often the lazier members will give up halfway done and leave the toughest parts to only the strong, who can't always cope. The fact that he was made to suffer four long days out at sea with excruciating pains means more that we all face the daily struggle of living life, and then to have it stripped away in an instant is heartbreaking. These are really just a part of the challenges in life; sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, and every once in a while we struggle and fight to get something only to have it taken in the end. Ernest Hemingway is very precise when he takes ordinary problems in the real world and spinning them around to fit into a fictional situation.