Is Santiago An Epic Hero Essay

A modern day epic hero is someone who after all their hard work, grit and effort towards their goal has all the good things in their life go wrong. In the The Old Man and the Sea, the old man, Santiago, has his whole life dedicated to fishing. Santiago is a poor man who fishes for a living even though he lives in a run down shack and rarely eats a good, healthy meal. Santiago dedicates his life to catching “the big one”. However, the actions of Santiago may be similar to the ones of epic heroes, Santiago proves to be his own kind of hero. Overall, in The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is not an epic hero because he has doubts when he is fishing, he physically struggles to keep the fish on the line, and he does not fight in a good versus evil battle. Santiago is not an epic hero because he chooses to go after one big fish instead of a thousand little fish. The old man states that “my choice was to go there to find him beyond all people” (Hemingway 13). Santiago’s life long dream was to capture this large fish, but he had no idea that this fight against the marlin would nearly kill him.

The fish plans to either wear Santiago out until his physical body lets go or the line breaks because of the marlin’s strength. Santiago knows that “it was difficult in the dark and once the fish made a surge that pulled on his face cut below” (Hemingway 14). Santiago is strong enough to hold onto the fish, but it gets tougher for his old body when the fish tries to make Santiago accidently let go of the line for one second. The old man attempts to get a hold of himself when it is nighttime to be prepared when the marlin strives to break the fishing line or push Santiago to his limits. The old man battles his inner self to hold on, but in the end, Santiago has the ability to fight this