"Suffering" Quotes

The old man does a lot of suffering in the novel The Old Man and the Sea. At a certain point, the reader feels so bad for the old man that they think it would perhaps be better for him to just give up all together. There is a lot of suffering in the story, so there are also a lot of important and significant quotes about it:

"All my life, the early sun has hurt my eyes, he thought." -Day Two.

Even the sun is causing Santiago to suffer. The sun, for Pete's sake. It hurts his old weary eyes and makes it hard for him to see. And the old man needs to see if he is going to continue to fish. But this is just one extremely small amount of suffering compared to the suffering the old man has later on in the novel, but physically and emotionally.

"It encouraged him to talk because his back had stiffened in the night and truly hurt now." -Day Three

This is an example of some of the minor physical suffering that the old man goes through. He is no longer young, and he cannot handle the physical strain of fishing like he once could, but he continues to try.

"He was comfortable but suffering, although he did not admit the suffering at all." -Day Three

Pride comes into the old man's suffering now. He is definitely in pain, but does not want to admit that his body is not as able anymore, and he is no longer young and agile. As the days wear on the old man gets weaker and weaker, forcing himself to eat raw bait just to gain a little bit of strength back.

"He was stiff and sore now and all the wounds and all the strained parts of his body hurt with the cold of the night. I hope I do not have to fight again, he thought." -Day Four

This is when the old man finally acknowledges all of his physical and emotional suffering- he only allows himself to do so after the fish is finally dead. The old man has even more troubles and suffering, however, after the sharks eat the marlin away and he goes home with empty hands and painful wounds.