"The Old Man and the Sea" Qestion 4

There are basically two characters in "The Old Man and the Sea."  There is the old man, Santiago, and the boy, Manolin.  They are referred to as the old man and the boy and their actual names are very rarely used.  The hero of the story is the old man.  He basically catches a ginormous fish that could eat him alive if it felt like it, and manages to get the skeleton of it home, which is a lot father that most people would get a fish that huge in a skiff that small.  He shows exemplary perseverance during his little brouhaha.  Not only does he catch an eighteen-foot marlin and kill it after having it hooked for three days all by himself, but he then wards off various shark attacks upon his prized fish, once again all by his lonesome.  That is some pretty hard core perseverance.  He is also a very wise character.  He tends to reminisce about the past quite a lot and we see that this old man has lived a long full filled life.  He has learned a lot from his long time on the earth and has shared it with the boy.  Through his relationship with the boy, we also see what a caring fellow he is.  As much as he enjoys having the boy around and wants him around, when the boy's parents tell him he can no longer go with Santiago to fish, he sees that it might be better for the boy if he was to go out on his own.  He puts his own feelings aside and looks to see what is best for the boy.  Santiago is portrayed as an extremely old man that age has taken effect on in some areas but physically he is still super human in some ways.  He rarely eats, and when he does he has to force himself to, yet he still has plenty of energy to get through the day.  Despite the fact he is at least in his eighties, the old man still has the gumption to bear the weight of an earth-shatteringly (yeah that's a word...) sized fish for three days and then kill this fish.  The old man still has excellent eyesight for his age as well as hearing.  He is also portrayed as a pretty strong-minded lad.  When his hands are bleeding profusely from holding the line the fish is attached to he his able to push through and tell himself his hands will heal in time, but he may never catch a fish quite like this again.  I know I keep going back to perseverance, but that is really what stuck out to me through this tale.  I believe that Santiago is a very good representation of perseverance.  He does not only show great lengths of courage when battling the fish, but also in persevering for eighty-four days without catching a single thing.  I believe that might be more impressive than sticking with the marlin for three days.  That was an immaculate show of physical perseverance, but it is much harder to persevere the harsh words of people sometimes.  




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