Santiago's Luck

This blog is going to be about Santiago’s absolutely atrocious luck. I feel extreme sympathy for him. This will probably be the only blog about his luck because I think everybody knows by now that his luck is pretty bad. I really don’t have a lot to say about this one.

“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. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.”

This was one of the first sentences in the book. It describes how Santiago’s horrible luck came about and how he lost Manolin. I remember thinking about how poor and malnourished Santiago must be by now if he hadn’t brought it any fish to eat or sell in eighty-four days. I think he would have had better luck joining a different boat with a larger group of people, but I know Santiago is stubborn and would never do that. I love that old man, besides his pride issues.

"No," the old man said. "You’re with a lucky boat. Stay with them."

This quote is something Santiago said to Manolin when Manolin offered to rejoin him back on Santiago’s boat. I don’t know if he was just saying that to put Manolin at ease, or he was saying it because he really believes in luck.