In everyday life you can be faced with many obstacles, struggles, and issues, whether it’s choosing your clothes for school or even buying something at a grocery store, its still a choice you have to make. In a piece of a literary work, the main character is also faced with a struggle, like wining a race, or choosing which path to take. But in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago, the main character, struggles with a much different obstacle, the art of fishing. While out on the seas for many of days, Santiago encounters numerous problems. But when it comes to fishing, people usually deal with the issues like weather conditions, equipment difficulties, loneliness, and the possibility of not even catching a fish. Unlike Santiago, he didn't have the same quality and techniques your typical fisherman today would have, he went by the saying, "never give up."
One of Santiago’s challenges seemed to be when he just couldn’t catch not one single fish for many days, weeks, and a few months. He spent most of his life out on the sea, catching fish, but this time just seemed like forever. "[Santiago] was an old man who fished alone in the skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish (9)." Santiago fished for months not being able to catch just one fish. While his friend Manolin was by his side the whole time, egging him on to try and catch a fish, but that just hadn’t seem to work.
All because of Santiago not being able to catch fish, he was becoming very poor and also came into poverty. He would have no fish to bring home and sell, which meant that he would have no food to feed himself, and even not enough money to get new bait to actually get fish, so Manolin, shared his money with him. "[Manolin] could go with you again. We made some money (10)." But only when Santiago did catch a fish, they would either get away somehow or they would get taken away by another fish like a shark.
Once Santiago did catch a fish for the first time in 84 days, something went completely wrong. When he caught the Marlin, for example he faced one problem, the sharks. "Now that I have [Marlin] coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I'll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now (87)." Santiago just wanted to finally caught a fish, and now that he has it, he doesn't want to let it go, but at the same time he doesn't want the sharks to get it either. He kept saying “kill me too” because he really didn’t want to let this fish go. Once he would get it he would have achieved his goal on getting a fish.
To conclude, Santiago discovers many problems when he fishes. Yet, he still never gave up with everything he did, which was the theme to this novella. Even if it meant going into poverty, staying out on the seas without catching a single fish, trying his hardest to get something that he knew he may not be able too, or even possibly getting killed, he was still never going to give up. Once he got around these struggles, obstacles, and issues, Santiago pushed himself harder to get what he needed done, like catching a fish for example. And luckily for Santiago he had Manolin right by his side, the whole time. And in the end, the art of fishing really was quite an obstacle for Santiago to face.
