When you think about a story,and compare it to life, there are so many similarities. One main part of everyday life is getting through tough situations. It is what shapes your day and, with even larger conflicts, your life. In a story, what does all of the detail and events get based around. The answer is also the conflicts. Every tale needs at least one conflict, but some have several. In The Old Man and the Sea, the old man faced many difficulties, and not just when he was actually catching the fish, but in other parts of his life, too. Some of the main conflicts include his old age, his growing loneliness, the sharks attacking his fish, and the hand that he hurt when fighting to catch the massive fish.
Santiago was the main character of this novella, and he was a very old man. Not only that, but he is also very worn out from fishing all of his life. Although he had the youth of the little boy with him for a while, when Manolin had to go back to work with his father, Santiago was left to do things on his own. He was very capable of fishing, but not as proficient to take on large journeys and adventures out to sea. This was not only because he was getting older, but also he was lonely without Manolin. Although they were not very talkative on the boat, he was still a companion to have, and Santiago knew that the little boy was a great help to him. There were many small jobs that the boy did that were still very important to the old man. The old man had several points during his trip when he missed the boy very much, and found himself talking to himself more than usual. “No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable” (48). Here, Hemingway shows that Santiago knows of his disadvantages as being a very old fishermen, but was not fretful about this, but instead wise, and aware of his situation being without the boy.
If the boy had been with him, then he may not have faced another conflict. As he was struggling with the gigantic fish, he cut his left hand on the taut line. This caused it to be useless and cramp up, where he could not loosen it at all. This also related to the boy being absent on this fishing trip because Santiago explains that Manolin would have wet the lines for him to keep it from happening. “If the boy were here he could rub [his hand] and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought” (62). Santiago probably felt very careless when he cut his hand on the line, but he also felt that if Manolin was there, then he would not have been as sloppy with how he injured himself.
Santiago was able to catch the grand fish and he was very proud of it;however, he faced a conflict in bringing it back to the island. He had made decision to go so far out that once he caught the fish, he would have travel back hoping not to be attcked by too many sharks. It was very difficult for him to get them away. “...the old man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down onto the shark’s head” (102). He had to do this several times, and by the last sharks, he could no longer hold them off. His whole fish was gone, and he arrived back to the island with nothing but a carcass. This made him very elegiac, especially after the long journey he had been through.
Conflict builds a story up to a climax, and the more intense the conflict is, the more interesting the story will be. This is the same with how life is everyday. In the Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway included several smaller conflicts around the main conflict of trying to catch a gigantic fish after catching nothing for eighty-five straight days. Stories are the same as a person's life; they include conflicts that need to be resolved and others that are not resolved, and they all have an affect on the outcome.
