The Old Man and the Sea - 1

In the book The Old Man the Sea by Ernest Hemingway there are many conflicts. Some of the conflicts are man versus animal, man versus himself, man versus nature, and man versus an opposing will. This novella certainly has many conflicts, especially since the book itself is rather short in length.

One of the main conflicts in this novella is between Santiago, the old man, and the marlin. Santiago has gone eighty-four days without catching a single fish, and he finally hooks one and it is the biggest fish he has ever hooked. In fact, it is the biggest fish he had ever seen or even heard of. The marlin was longer than the man's sailboat. The fish was so big that the old man could not pull him in. The man had to wait for the fish to become weak and tired. The man battled with the fish for three days while he waited for the fish to give in. The fish however, was not about to give in. The fish was waiting for the man to give up, however the man was not about to give up. Both were very stubborn. It eventually came down to a waiting game. Both the fish and the man had to wait until the other would give in. This was the major conflict in the book.

Another conflict was the old man versus himself. The old man was very old and his body seemed to be failing him. He would forget to eat, and become weak and tired. Atone point,his left hand cramped up while holding the fishing line, and he could not use his hand for quite some time. The man's mind, however, was strong. The man had predetermined that he would not give in. He was going to fight until the death; whether it was the death of the fish or of himself. As the days went by, the man's mind started to flee from him a little. Just as he was at a strong and mentally stable point, his mind would doubt him and second guess himself. He would then have to think again and correct his thoughts and tell himself that he could do it and that he was fully capable of enduring the pain, because pain was nothing to man.

The last major conflict in this novella is the old man versus chance/luck. The man went eighty-four days without catching a fish prior to the giant marlin. That is almost three months of fishing without any luck. And it was not because the old man was a bad fishermen, he actually was the most precise fishermen all around. The reason was just chance. No fish happened to bite any of his hooks. The conflict of chance is also seen later in the novel with the man and the marlin. It is lucky that the fish even went for the old man's bait.

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