Causes, gains, and losses - Old Man and The Sea

In the book The Old Man and The Sea, there are many small conflicts, but the book revolves around one major conflict.  That conflict is that the old man, Santiago, has not caught any fish in eighty-four days (Hemingway, 9).  With this conflict come many gains and losses but really no explanable cause.  The only cause that you can get out of it is that Santiago is just having bad luck in catching fish.  The biggest gain is Santiago finally catching a fish.  He had been in a huge drought and finally he comes up with something.  With this, Santiago gains a huge moral booster.  He had been made fun of by other sailors for not catching anything and finally he gets that burden of his back (Hemingway, 11).  Also, he gains the satisfaction of catching an eighteen foot marlin, the biggest he had ever caught (Hemingway, 122).  However, with all these gains come a few losses.  By far the worst, Santiago loses the marlin.  After finally catching the fish, Santiago can only watch and try to fight off the ferocious sharks from eating his massive marlin.  With this, Santiago loses a lot of hope.  He had come all this way, not only to hook the marlin, but to hold on to him for three long days.  He might lose the feeling of why he does what he does.   When it was all said and done I am sure that if he had the chance to do it differently he would, but Santiago gains all this experience that came with the fish.  If you look at all the gains and losses, you could say that they equal each other out, but in my opinion, the gains will last much longer in the mind of Santiago.  If I were in Santiago's shoes, it would be tought the first few days to get over what had happened, but you can always say that you caught the biggest fish and that he gained self-confidence in the whole experience.


 

Bibliography

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1996. Print.