Santiago's Struggles

Nature is a powerful force, it has the power to kill a man or save him. In the book The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Santiago has many physical and emotional struggles with nature, which ultimately leads to his defeat by it. Santiago’s physical struggles included wounds, dizziness, soreness, and not being able to fight anymore because of the amount of physical pain. His mental struggles were regretting the decision of catching the fish and wanting Manolin to be with him on the boat. These struggles lead to his defeat by nature. Santiago has many physical struggles throughout the book. On the fourth day “for an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and sweat salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead..he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him” (84). Santiago is physically wounded by nature, he is worried that these physical wounds might lead to his defeat. Santiago got cut by his line so he shifted “...the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged for more than a minute watching the blood trail away (57)” A cut on
Santiago is so physically beaten down by the sharks that he says “Now they have beaten me, I am too old to club sharks to death” (97). He has given up on trying to fend off the sharks from the fish, he is physically beaten. Santiago’s goal was to bring the fish home to make the boy happy. He firstly did not bring the fish home and secondly he did not make the boy happy at all. When Santiago came back and the boy saw how mentally and physically beaten down Santiago was he “...went out the door and down the worn coral rock road he started to cry” (120). Santiago did not make the boy happy at all, the boy is so upset to the point where he has to cry. Santiago did not complete his Santiago was defeated because he gives up and does not complete his