The Young Man And The Sea By Rodman Philbrick

Life always has its bumpy roads. There would be problems just around the corner and a lot of people would decide to take another route. Some people would take on that corner and decide to quit. Some people do it as Skiff Beaman does: Take on the tight corner and find a better one along the way. In the book The Young Man and the Sea by Rodman Philbrick, Samuel “Skiff” Beaman is tackled by many of Life’s problems but unlike most people, he’d challenge those issues. Sometimes he’d find something a bit better out of the problem. The theme I believe applies to this series of scenarios is that there could be uncalled for benefits in losses.
Opening up the story, his boat, the Mary rose, has just sunk and he wants to get it fixed so he had to gain
He did some late-night investigating and found out Tyler Croft had been responsible for the problems but he couldn’t do anything about it. He said in his mind, “Lobster boy versus rich boy. You know who wins that fight.” This made me feel a bit sad because this shows how the world can be unfair and some were fated with money, some with luck, and some with whatever Skiff’s got. Skiff’s got nothing. He’s got nothing as long as a rotten kid like Tyler keeps sabotaging his traps. Skiff’s knew that he can’t do anything but continue with his failing plan. Then one day, as he set out to drop some traps, he found a guy who had caught a bluefin tuna by accident and is earning big cash for it from a Japanese business man called Mr. Nagahachi. He talked to the man and was told the value variations of the bluefin tuna. This gave Skiff new light. He thought that if he could catch just one bluefin tuna, he could fix the boat, get his dad pumped, and use the rest of the money for luxury. So it turns out that “dirty little piece of crud” and his vandalizing work had brought Skiff to rethink his plans and set out for a bigger prize. If Tyler hadn’t meddled with the traps, Skiff would’ve probably been too motivated to notice or care about the bluefin tuna
However, unlike his dad, Skiff stays strong. His dad insteads turns into a drunk couch bum who’d only get up to get another can of beer. I think if he’d just found fortitude, he could’ve helped his poor innocent boy and kept him from gaining too much experience at such a young age. That didn’t happen, unfortunately, and Skiff has been more caring of his father than the other way around. At least that is what I could make of Skiff’s perspective of the whole thing. Although he’s been trying to support his dad, Skiff had reached a few points where he’s gotten sick of his dad’s uselessness. An example of this is when he was talking to Mr. Woodwell and said, “I don’t care about him. I care about the Mary Rose.” I was a bit shocked when he said that but I knew why he would’ve said it. I’d be frustrated if I’m trying to help someone and in return they just mope around, feeling sorry for themselves. I’d actually hate them but in return, I’d probably learn how to set proper priorities and be independent. Skiff’s loneliness taught him to be self-sustaining which would be a valuable attribute for his