Examples of Santiago's Pride

Since I like quotes so much, I am going to pick out the ones that I personally felt like reflected Santiago’s pride and confidence in himself.

"Who gave this to you?"

"Martin. The owner." "I must thank him."

"I thanked him already," the boy said. "You don’t need to thank him." "I’ll give him the belly meat of a big fish," the old man said. "Has he done this for us more than once?"

"I think so."

"I must give him something more than the belly meat then. He is very thoughtful for us."

This is overflowing with pride. Santiago is insinuating that he is going to catch a fish the next day before he has even casted his lines. I am going to start using ridiculous words to make writing these blogs more fun. Ridiculous words make everything better. Santiago, now he’s ridiculous. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched, Santiago. He is overconfident sometimes in this novel, but maybe he deserves to be.

The wind is our friend, anyway, he thought. Then he added, sometimes. And the great sea with our friends and our enemies. And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, he thought.

"Nothing," he said aloud. "I went out too far."

Santiago in this quote is just being ridiculous. It is very obviously his fault. He let the fish drag him out that far instead of cutting the line. He doesn’t think he’s been beat, but everybody knows that he has. The sharks ate his whole fish, I am pretty sure that makes him beaten.

"And the best fisherman is you."

"No. I know others better."

At least in this quote Santiago is being modest. He is still full of pride to the point of nearly exploding, but I guess I can let it slide because he’s modest.