I think that the author did a good job showing that the world was not all fine and dandy in the 1950's. Just because that is all that I have ever learned about in History class about the 1950's, that does not mean that other countries, people, and cultures we not struggling in the same decade. I think that there were probably people in Cuba that were not struggling as much as the old man and the young boy, but the author chose not to include them because one of his goals was to show the poverty in the Cuban fishing town that the beginning of the book takes place in. I think that the book lacked historical events. I might have read over something in the book, but I did not notice anything that I had ever heard of before besides Joe DiMaggio (Hemingway 21.)
Hemingway did use relationships in this book though. I noticed three main relationships. The first one that I noticed was that of the old man and the young boy. They have an awesome relationship. They care about each other and they are willing to do almost anything to keep the other around. The second relationship that I noticed was that of the old man and the marlin. I think that they also develop a good relationship towards the end of Santiago's fishing trip. They were not the best of friends at the beginning of the trip, but the marlin learned that the old man was trying to help keep all of the sharks away. The last relationship that I noticed was that of the young boy's father and the old man. This was the only negative relationship that I noticed. I think that the only reason that the boy's father did not like Santiago was because he did not want his boy to learn skills from a bad fisherman. I do not think that the man held any personal grudge against the old man, but that I am not quite sure of because the book did not really give us any background information.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.
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