Luck plays quite a large role in Old Man and the Sea. Because of Santiago’s “bad luck,” or salao as they call it, Manolin is not allowed to fish with him anymore by his parents. I think all the people in the village are way too superstitious, but I guess this story did take place quite a while ago. Still, that is basically all that the people rely on. For instance, Santiago is an absolute beast of a fisherman, and he knows that, yet he continues to believe that because of his so called “bad luck” he cannot catch a single fish. This got to him for about eighty four days, but then he finally mans up goes out to the deep water, and he proves everybody wrong. I honestly think that he could have caught the marlin anytime he wanted to, but he just let all the talk about bad luck get to his head. I suppose I buy into all that positive thinking mumbo jumbo when I say that even though it is super cliché. Now that I think about it, this story has a pretty classic and common plot line. The whole town, or village, or city, or whatever you may have has their minds set on one crazy idea or philosophy. In this case, the crazy idea is bad luck. Anyway, one brave radical such as Santiago sets out to prove everybody wrong. Usually this task does not go as planned for the hero, but it all works out, and they learn a valuable life lesson in the process. However, in this particular novel, it is ally try to prove everybody wrong about his bad luck, but he is more proving it to himself. Overall, I think the village’s whole philosophy about fishing being a game of luck is pure poppycock. Santiago should not have let all the criticism get to his head, but I am glad that he finally went out and did his thing, and he caught the marlin.
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