Conflict In The Old Man And The Sea

761 Words4 Pages

" The inner and external conflicts in The Old Man and The Sea"
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is an American writer who witnessed the horrors of the two World Wars (1914-1945). He lived in Paris and he himself participated in WWI as he was a driver seeing the killed, injured, tortured victims of the war. He joined a group of American writers who were living in Paris and they all share the feeling of the loss. In the 1920s Their literary activities were under the name of “The Lost Generation”. Hemingway wrote many great literary works and one of them is his novella, The Old Man and The Sea (1952). As in all of his novels, Hemingway’s style is smooth and easily flowing that can fit the level of all readers. Yet according to the theory of the iceberg, …show more content…

He is self-confident enough to consider how other people think of him. He does not accept customs of the society. They might consider him a failure because he failed in catching fishes for 84 days and yet he never lose the ambition and despair has never entered his heart. He does not like socializing with other groups so he goes out for fishing alone. Although he is very old with skinny body, he believes of his ability of catching a big fish someday. He once said, "I have no luck anymore. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” (Hemingway, 8). The other external conflict is with nature. When Santiago goes fishing and he finally catches a very big fish, he decided to drag it to his village but on his way sharks attack him. He shows a huge struggle lasted for three days. He killed some of the sharks yet they finally ate the flesh of the fish. As he came back to the village, he insists on bringing the head and the skeleton of the fish with him. Here is symbolism as the man was keen on bringing the skeleton to show society that he caught the fish and managed in doing this. I think that Santiago wins the struggle because he proves his heroic deed by being survived till the

Open Document