By Caulien C.

In the book the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway, Santiago has set out to sea on his 85^th day of unlucky fishing to try and turn his unluckiness around. As he is out at sea his line hooks a giant marlin, larger than his skiff! He spends four days with this fish and finally catches it. After catching the great fish, it gets attacked by roaming sharks that had followed the scent of fish blood from a mile away. As the sharks attacked Santiago fought till the end to keep his fish safe. As Santiago returned home, he was defeated physically, but he knew in a couple of days he’d be out at sea again trying to catch more fish. Even through all those troubles and problems, Santiago has never given up on anything.

Talking about this theme has made me think about how I can relate to it. As I play sports I can understand that you can never give up. Sometimes when I’m on the court playing basketball or when I’m swimming a longer race than usual, I get tired and feel like quitting, but I can’t because I’d be letting my team down and also myself. I must stick with what I am doing until I am finished. As Santiago has said to the fish as it pulls him across the sea, “’Fish,’ he said softly, aloud, ‘I’ll stay with you until I am dead.’”(52). And Santiago did stay with the fish the whole time after that.

As Santiago faces all these troubles he knows that he cannot give up. It’s not just, not giving up; it’s also that he wants to make the boy proud. He wants the boy to look at him as a hero of some sort. He wants to prove this to boy when saying, “’I told the boy I was a strange man,’ he said. ‘Now is the time to prove it.’”(66) He wants to be as famous as when he had hand wrestled against the Negro, “and at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking, [Santiago] had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood.” He wants people to look at him like he’s amazing and lucky, not an unlucky fisherman.

Also there is a very strong relationship between the boy and Santiago. Even though Santiago has been a very unlucky person for the past 84 days, the boy has still wanted to come with him on his fishing trips. Though Santiago is getting old too, the boy is always there to help the old man. Manolin will never give up on the man, until he dies. He wants to fish with the old man as he says, “’I do not care. I caught 2 yesterday. But we will fish together now for I still have much to learn.’” As Santiago sets out to sea, one of his lines gets caught by a huge marlin. The Marlin pulls him and his skiff for a few days and finally comes up. Through the time he has spent waiting for the marlin he goes through many troubles but he got through them. He had killed some sharks and injured plenty, fighting for the fish. But he never gave up on it.

Santiago has had a great experience and has gotten even wiser than before. He starts to understand the sea even better. Even though he had not been able to really bring the whole fish home, and it seems that all the fighting and pushing himself was a waste of time, and he knew that it would be very difficult, but he loves the sea. He said that he was to fish, so it must be in his blood to do things like that. He probably hopes that the boy will have the same experience as he did.