Internal and External Conflicts The Old Man and the Sea

Internal Conflicts:

1. Old man vs. Guilt for catching the marlin - The old man respects the marlin like a brother, but he still killed it.
2. Old man vs. Time/Age - The old man is old but his pride drives him on to keep on fishing and to still try to catch fish after having gone eighty-four days without a catch.

External Conflicts:

1. Old man vs. The Marlin - The old man is try to catch the marlin but the marlin is fighting back pretty hard.
2. Old man vs. His village - Everyone in the old man's village except the boy thinks he had ran out of luck because he had gone eight-four days without a fish, but the old man is still determined to catch a fish.

Passage: "'Fish,' he said, 'I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.'"


This passage shows the most important conflict in this novella, the external conflict old man vs. the marlin. Most of this novella is talking about the old man hooking the marlin and tailing it for three days and what happened those three days. So the majority of the book is talking about the course of events of this conflict. Even the climax is around this conflict, when the marlin is circling and the old man is trying to harpoon it.