"The Old Man and the Sea" Question 2

The main conflict of this book is Santiago, the old man, has hooked himself a really really really gigantic fish.  This would be great but he has a tiny skiff not ideal for fish of this size, he's all by himself, and he's a very old man which is probably why he is always referred to as "the old man."  He's actually described as being in very good shape for how old he is and how long he's been a fisherman, but even then everyone has their limits and apparently three long days at sea, a 1500 pound marlin, and five plus sharks attacking his skiff are his.  So to summarize the conflict:  The old man has hooked a giant marlin and must reel it up and kill it all by himself and get it home, which is three days away, all by his lonesome.  The causes of this conflict are quite a few things.  For one, the old man has sailed out much farther than he usually does because he has been very unlucky and is determined to change that.  Had he not sailed out so far he probably wouldn't have hooked the marlin.  Another cause is his old age.  In his prime, this fish would have still been a struggle but he wouldn't have made as many silly mistakes as he did.  His age is also a good thing though because he has a vast amount of experience and knowledge because he's been fishing for so long.  The losses of the conflict are the loss of the fish's meat.  Sharks attack his boat and eventually he has to just let them eat away at the fish because he looses all his weapons.  He still gets to say he caught and hauled home an eighteen foot marlin, but he won't get any money for it because all the meet is gone.  One of the gains of the conflict is the old man does indeed catch the fish.  He may have only made it home with a cracass but by golly it was an eighteen-foot carcass!  By finally ending his luck and catching the fish I think it gives him a confidence boost and ends his unlucky streak so to speak.  He does tell the boy that they beat him in the end, referring to the sharks, but he still beat the fish.  




Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.