Santiago: A Lop-Sided Character in the Old Man and the Sea

IntroductionThis paper is a study of how Santiago, an old Cuban angler finds it difficult to adjust old age with trends prevalent in his society. Santiago has been known as a champion angler throughout his youth for his strength, not only that, he also skills of his trade. Now in his old age, he is at odds with his trends prevalent and due to his constant failure, he is termed salao by community. Santiago cannot come to terms with fact that he is not as agile and strong as young anglers even though he has skills, therefore he pushes himself too far in proving his worth and thus his character becomes lopsided. Santiago constantly wears a persona of a champion to be in lime light; as such, he becomes too much extraverted and pays more attention to his image and how he is perceived by others. Thus Santiago has too learn to integrate all aspects to his personality for this he has to get in touch with his unconscious.Santiago: A lopsided character in The Old Man and SeaSantiago in Hemingway's The Old Man and Sea is an interesting character whose demeanour and words beggar attention and analysis. There is more to him than meets eye. He is a man of a few words. And, whatever little he says is, most of times, not in accordance with his beliefs. There is a visible gap between what he is and what he appears to be. To public and immediate community around him, he is an old man who is more like a spent cartridgesomething that he does not accept. Santiago, however, is determined to have his community think otherwise. He wants them to think of him as champion angler and macho man but there is not much of either left in him. He has carved out an unstated role for himself. However, he does not have capacity to play role. This creates lopsidedness in his personality. This paper is an attempt to analyse Santiago's character and his odd behaviour and determines why he is way he and what social and psychological implications his odd behaviour has for him and his life.Lopsidedness in one's behaviour gives birth to conflicts both on personal and professional levels.1 Santiago, who has had a very busy, hectic, and active life in earlier days, seems to have trouble adjusting to needs and demands of later part of life. His aging body cannot keep up with challenges he easily undertook as a young man-challenges that earned him reputation of being a champion. No matter how skilled and adept, he needs strength and energy: he is in denial of sorts. The demands of environment around him put his skills to a test, and he seems to fail test. Times have changed and so have values. Santiago, however, has stayed back in time. Physically, he is in here-and-now; emotionally and psychologically, he is in there-and-then. He is stuck in time and has trouble adjusting to new norms. He is now old and is not physically agile to do things same way that he used to do. He was a very successful angler; the deep creased scars from handling heavy fish on cord show that.2 The distance between his there-and-then is a little too wide for Santiago and people to understand.The villagers ostracize Santiago due to his failure to catch good fish for quite some time. They call him salao (OMS 1 ) a title that he does not like. The villagers resort to catching fish modern way; Santiago wants to stick to his old-fashioned fishing rod. For former, it is a source of income and a living; for latter it is a sacred activity. Though title that his community has given him bothers him, Santiago knows that he has capacity and potential to catch big fish with his fishing lines and thus prove to his villagers that he is not what they think he is. For them he is salao; for himself, he is champion angler. The gap between what others think of him and what he is lies complex life of this old man who fails to see that both are part of truth about him. …