The Old Man and the Sea: Conflict Causes, Gains, and Losses

The conflict in this book is Santiago’s fight to catch a huge marlin fish and take him to the island.  Santiago had gone eighty-four days without catching a single fish.  For some reason he felt that eighty-five was a lucky number and with the current being pleasant he would be able to catch a big fish (Hemmingway 4).  He decides to travel far out into the ocean away from the bay where the depth is significantly deeper (Hemmingway 10).  After letting several baits down into the water and waiting for several hours, he feels one of the lines being tugged with significant pressure (Hemmingway 14). 

            The first part of the conflict from this point is trying to kill the fish.  The trouble for the old man increases at several points such as when he cuts his hands a couple of times, waits multiple days before he even sees the fish that he caught, and he also becomes very timed but yet unwilling to sleep because he does not want anything to go wrong in catching the marlin.  He becomes so sore and tired that it is unclear if such an old man would be capable of even reeling the fish in.  The conflict also increases when Santiago seems to be losing willpower by thinking, “You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother.  Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who.” (Hemmingway 35)  Eventually Santiago kills the fish with his harpoon, but the conflict does not end there.  The fish was so big that it had to be tied onto the end of the boat.  Some blood was leaking out from an open wound inflicted by the harpoon.  During his journey back to the island, Santiago is forced to fight off and kill several sharks that come because they have smelt the blood.  Each time a shark comes and bites some of the meat off, some more blood is released into the water, which only attracts more sharks. 

            The conflict decreases only after the sharks have eaten all that was left of the fish except the head.  After most of the fish had been eaten by the sharks, Santiago gave up on trying to fight them off.  It is shown that Santiago is not sore about what happened and he let the matter go.  The narrator tells us in the end, “Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.” (Hemmingway 48)  The old man was peaceful when he was dreaming of the lions in Africa, and by not dreaming about the big fish it shows that he is at peace over what happened. 

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