Grit, grit is when someone is knocked down over and over again but they get back up and try again. Santiago has to have much grit to be able to reach his goal of catching a marlin. Santiago has gone 84 days without catching one fish, he does not back down, he gets back up and keeps moving along. Santiago had one tuna fish, and one water bottle throughout his whole treacherous journey. On his way to accomplish his goal he runs into some major roadblocks, but he defeats them with grace. Santiago from “The Old Man and the Sea” shows grit throughout his journey in the boat, during the shark attacks, and toward the marlin.
Santiago was an old man who fished for his basic needs, all he had was a tiny skiff, and a young boy named Manolin, the two men ran out of luck, and Manolin left the old man with despair. “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week”(Hemingway 1).
The old man went out in the sea for 84 days straight catching nothing. He had a young boy helping him out, but when 40 days went by the young boy Manolin had to leave because of their bad luck. The man felt lonely after that, he thought he couldn’t do it without the boy, but he brushed it off and went out by himself. Santiago almost felt like he was being defeated in the boat, but he worked so hard he felt sick. “For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots.
They were normal at the tension that he was pulling on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him”(115). Santiago is working so hard that he is nearly about to faint. Santiago is on the verge of losing pride, but he just convinced himself that the black spots were normal and kept pushing. The old man knows if he faints he will know that he worked hard to get the marlin. Soon after Santiago uses his energy to catch the fish, a mako shark comes to destroy the fish, but Santiago is not scared, he ghting. “He took about forty pounds,” the old man said aloud.
He took my harpoon too and all the rope, he thought, and now my fish bleeds again and there will be others. He did not like to look at the fish anymore since he had been mutilated. When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit. But I killed the shark that hit my fish, he thought. And he was the biggest dentuso that I have ever seen. And God knows that I have seen big ones” (102). When mako shark started to come his way, he killed it in an instant with his harpoon, but the shark took everything that he had to kill. Santiago realizes that he has to keep up his faith and have the most grit during this encounter.
Even though the fish was destroyed by the sharks he kept his hope up and tried to sail home. After defeating the sharks, the old man realizes that he is stronger and smarter than both the fish and the shark, that though brings up his pride. “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated. “I am sorry that I killed the fish though, he thought. Now the bad time is coming and I do not even have the harpoon. The dentuso is cruel and able and strong and intelligent. But I was more intelligent than he was. Perhaps not, he thought. Perhaps I was only better armed” (102).
The old man is convincing himself that he cannot be destroyed and will not be destroyed. But he is starting to regret killing the fish because he knows how much labor it is going to take. “The Old Man and the Sea” shows grit throughout his journey in the boat, during the shark attacks, and toward the marlin. When Santiago is sailing along the dangerous sea, he talks to the birds, and talks to himself just trying to keep his perseverance. When bunches of sharks keep coming toward him, he beats them and he feels glorified. Grit is needed in Santiago and in life to beat challenges that come towards you, if you believe you can you can.
