A lot of the struggles in this book are minor. One event that is definitely bigger than the rest would be the old man's fight with the fish. He fought many fights during his way to get the fish, such as loosing his friend and other fishermen's comments, and on the way back after he caught the fish. So the actual struggle to get the fish wasn't even over until he reached land. This was because of the sharks and the old man's weakness from the fight with the fish. Santiago's journey had a lot of gains. For me, I would think that proving all the other fisherman wrong would be a huge gain. He caught a huge fish and showed all the other men that he wasn't who they thought he was. If I was in his position, that might be the biggest achievement. But Santiago had a very different personality than I do. He was happy to end the 84 day streak of not catching anything. The marlin's fight also helped Santiago in a way. He learned things about himself! He realized how strong he was. With the constant battle of the boat swaying and the fish never letting down his guard, he finally won. He finally killed the fish and then started on his way back home (Hemingway 75). He learned about strength that he didn't even know he had.
He also had some losses. The big loss was loosing his fish to the long journey home with sharks (Hemingway 101). The sharks could tell of the weakness from the man in the boat and decided to use it to their gain. One by one, they all got a piece of the marlin. The old man killed one of them, but he couldn't get all of them.
The conflict involved Santiago's 84 day streak of not catching a fish. To change this, he decided to travel out further. This had many more struggles, he knew. But in order to catch something, he decided it was the only way (Hemingway 32). None of the gains or losses would have occurred if he did not take that extra step. The conflict brought out good and bad things.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.
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