Barriers and Obstacles

In the novella, The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago faces many obstacles in which he struggles to bypass. Regardless of the complication of the various barriers that he hits, he elapses them in a successful manner.

Santiago is merely a human being that faces tough situations, as all of humanity does. We often encounter dilemmas that slow us down.

They can be as narrow as not having enough money to buy a burger off of the McDonald's dollar menu, a dog eating our homework, or even typing an extremely difficult essay. Sometimes we come across situations that might make the front-page of the newspaper. Those can range from robbing a bank to kidnapping the president.

Different obstacles call for different ways of getting past them and Santiago just so happened to come across obstacles that were crucial to events during his trip, and even his life.

One obstacle of Santiago was fishing with a hand that tormented him. Santiago's left hand was penetrating from holding the fishing line. You can infer that this would be painful, due to having a gargantuan fish as hefty as three quarters of a ton on the end of a fishing line. " He took hold of the line carefully so that it did not fit into any of the fresh line cuts and shifted his weight so that he could put his left hand into the sea on the other side of the skiff," (84-85).

Although his left hand looked like raw meat and had a burning sensation, he managed to work around the pain. He ignored the minor factor of pain as a solution to this conflict, which represents the warrior within Santiago. Because of how he went about dealing with the corresponding problem, he was able to progress to catch to fish. This is one obstacle that works against the wise fisherman.

Another obstacle that works against the old man is his desire for the boy, Manolin, to be in his presence. Manolin is a young man that helps Santiago with various different tasks. He often takes care of the old man, as well. For example, he covers Santiago with a blanket as he sleeps,(18) or he might give him food, such as albacore, which is also known as tuna, (31).

Without Manolin, the old man is lonely as a skinny kid at fat camp. He almost seems bored as well. He talks to himself continuously, throughout his fishing trip. He's also hopeless because Manolin is of great contribution to Santiago.

"I wish the boy were here and that I had some salt," he said aloud," (56). However, he continues his journey in success despite his necessity. He decides he shouldn't need the boy and that he could take matters into his own hands. This shows the old man's independence. This is another obstacle working against Santiago.

A distinct obstacle that the old man experiences is catching the marlin. The marlin is greater than Santiago, in size, which makes catching the fish a difficult task because the fish never really stays still.

However, the man is posing a threat to his own life by taking the time to catch the marlin. It's safe to say that the man is in a competition against time and the marlin for his own life. "As it went down, slipping slightly through the old man's fingers, he could still feel the great weight, though the pressure of his thumb and finger were almost imperceptible," (43).

To get past this obstacle, Santiago manages to catch the great marlin, a task which seems to be a exhibition of impossibility. Based on this obstacle, Santiago's fishing skills are put to the test, however, the marlin is no match for Santiago. I think the old man was proud to have achieved this. This is another obstacle that Santiago slips by.

One last obstacle that insults Santiago is the invasion of the various types of sharks. The sharks that attack Santiago do not attack to get a hold of him, but to get a grasp on the marlin. The sharks serve as an interruption to Santiago's state of calmness.

"He hit it with his blood mushed hands driving a good harpoon with all his strength. He hit it without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy", (102). This represents the tough side of Santiago, as he manages to take a bunch of horrific sharks out with simple tools and his bare hands. This is impressive as well, because his left hand is raw and might make fighting much tougher for him. This is another obstacle that Santiago faces.

In general, Santiago did manage to find his way past every obstacle successfully. Conclusions weren't the best, but it's not about the condition of them. I think it's more about getting the job done.

How Santiago managed to get things done didn't matter and what he went through didn't either. It was the fact that tasks were actually completed such as catching the marlin as an achievement or even fighting a band of vicious, blood-hungry sharks.

People tend to get past barriers and how they go about doing so is simply up to them. Santiago did pass these obstacle for the time being. However, barriers can get so rough that they do get the better of you. All of humanity will have a point in which life meets death. Unfortunately, Santiago's time came after the trip.