In the novel The Old Man and the Sea, the old man, Santiago is a man full of good morals. One you can see very plainly in the beginning of the novel. The old man seems to be quite poor, and he lives with very few belongings but I believe that even if Santiago was one of the very successful fisherman, he would still not have many possessions. The old man is a minimalist in a good way. He lives his life out on the sea for the most part, which makes his life fulfilled. He does not need to fill his life with material objects that do not mean anything personal to him. He also does not care that all the other fishermen make fun of him for being so old, and for not having caught a fish is so many days. Santiago only needs the company of Manolin, a young boy that he has taught to fish, to be satisfied. It is mentioned in the beginning of the novel that Santiago had a wife who must have died, "'Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him to lonely to see it.'" (Hemingway 16).
The largest moral the old man has is about killing the fish. He says many times throughout the course of the novel when he has hooked the marlin, how worthy of an opponent the marlin is to him. The old man seems to consider these fish to be his equals, which makes it hard to kill them. After the old man has killed the marlin he thinks to himself, "You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?" (Hemingway 105). This quote is very meaningful because it shows the confusion someone can have about killing or destroying something they love. This quote can be applied to many things not just a life, like it applies to the old man.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 1952. Print.
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