Blog #4: The Old Man and the Sea

I think that even though the old man struggles quite a bit throughout the book, I do believe that he has at least some of the qualities of a hero. I would classify a hero as someone with courage, perseverance, and compassion. I think that the old man possesses all of these three traits, but at some times I think that he has a problem displaying those traits and putting them to good use.

I would say the the old man possesses courage. He begins to believe in himself, and I also think that it took the old man quite a bit of courage to sail all the way out into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to catch the biggest fish ever. I think that it took courage for Santiago to continue to try to earn back the respect from Manolin and his family. I do not think that I would have had the courage to continue to fish just to prove somebody wrong because they insulted me. I would probably just shut down and stop fishing all together especially if this was the second time I had gone over eighty days without catching a fish.

The old man also has an extraordinary display of perseverance. I admire this quality in Santiago. The old man had gone eighty-four days without catching a fish, but he continues to go out to sea and give the best effort possible. If I were the old man i would not have even gotten myself into his position because I would have totally given up my fishing career the first time that I had gone over eighty days without catching a fish. Santiago went above and beyond the expectations of the other fishermen also, they would have given up long before Santiago, but they were not having the same bad luck as the old man.

The old man showed compassion to the marlin. After all of the hard work and trouble that Santiago went through to catch the marlin for eating, he developed a good "friendship" with the marlin. He gets upset as the sharks come up to take bites away from his prize catch. The author clearly states the he was not upset because the sharks were destroying his catch, it was because he was compassionate towards the marlin.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.