Old Man and the Sea: Question 2

Question two asks “What are the causes, gains, and losses of the conflict dealt with in this book?” The book I will be answering the question from is Old Man and the Sea. I am going to go through a few specific conflicts and their causes, gains, and losses. One conflict was that the boy, Manolin, wants to fish with the old man but Manolin’s parents will not allow it.(Hemingway) This causes Manolin to be upset because he has to stay behind and makes the old man, Santiago El Cameon, to have to go alone. One gain to this is that the Santiago El Cameon has less to worry about when he is on the boat fishing because he will not be worried about Manolin and his safety. Another gain is that Manolin will not get in trouble with his parents because he isn’t going. A loss is that when Santiago is on the boat he ends up needing to boy in many ways. One way being that he needed company to help himself not go crazy from the stress. The other two main reasons are that he needed help with things around the boat and fighting off the sharks when he caught the big fish.(Hemingway) Another conflict was that Santiago is very old and weak. This causes him to have trouble doing many things in his everyday life, especially his fishing. A gain to him being older and weak is that people give him much respect. Many people in the town help him, especially the young boy Manolin and the restaurant owner who always gives food and coffee to Manolin to give to Santiago.(Hemingway) Another gain is that this forces Santiago to search for other ways of strength in his heart and mind. The losses to this are very evident. Being as weak as Santiago is can make being a fisherman on a boat very challenging to do because it is hard to lift heavy things that need to be lifted. Another huge loss was when he had to try and fight the sharks off his big fish and because he was so weak, he could not do it and lost his large fish.(Hemingway)


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