Santiago’s shack in The Old Man and the Sea is furnished with nothing more than the everyday necessities. Santiago’s mast is almost as long as his shack. The shack is made up of only one room. In the single room, there is a tattered bed, a small table, a wobbly chair and a small area on the ground that is used for cooking. The shack is made of the tough budshields of the royal palm. The walls are made of the leaves of the royal palm and the floor is natural dirt. Santiago has never bought any luxuries for himself. He can barely afford a newspaper, which he tries to obtain once every few days to keep up with recent baseball scores and news. As well, Santiago keeps pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Virgin of Cobre on his wall;
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The shack shows the amount of physical and mental challenges that he must overcome each day. Even though Santiago has not caught a single fish for 84 days straight, he has not capitulated to being a fisherman despite the wretched atmosphere that his shack instigates. The shack, as long as the mast, appears barely habitable. The “tattered” bed and the small table designate the extremity of the dejection in which Santiago has been living in. The “wobbly” chair is like an obstacle that can threaten his life by vacillating his mood between hope and despair. As well, “the tough budshields of the royal palm” shows how Santiago is resourceful and how he has endeavoured to dote on any supply that he has assembled. The tough budshields emphasizes Santiago’s power. That is, Santiago never allows the living conditions in his shack to impinge on him. The paintings in the shack suggest that Santiago’s wife is more religious than Santiago, but that Santiago can have utilized his wife’s faith to remember her. The fact that Santiago is “too lonely to look at the picture of his wife” shows how desolate he is, besides his companionship with Manolin. In other words, he never dreams about living in a better place and never prays to God for a better house or shack. He is not greedy about money. Instead, Santiago appreciates what he has been endowed with. Santiago is only desirous of honour
The shack shows the amount of physical and mental challenges that he must overcome each day. Even though Santiago has not caught a single fish for 84 days straight, he has not capitulated to being a fisherman despite the wretched atmosphere that his shack instigates. The shack, as long as the mast, appears barely habitable. The “tattered” bed and the small table designate the extremity of the dejection in which Santiago has been living in. The “wobbly” chair is like an obstacle that can threaten his life by vacillating his mood between hope and despair. As well, “the tough budshields of the royal palm” shows how Santiago is resourceful and how he has endeavoured to dote on any supply that he has assembled. The tough budshields emphasizes Santiago’s power. That is, Santiago never allows the living conditions in his shack to impinge on him. The paintings in the shack suggest that Santiago’s wife is more religious than Santiago, but that Santiago can have utilized his wife’s faith to remember her. The fact that Santiago is “too lonely to look at the picture of his wife” shows how desolate he is, besides his companionship with Manolin. In other words, he never dreams about living in a better place and never prays to God for a better house or shack. He is not greedy about money. Instead, Santiago appreciates what he has been endowed with. Santiago is only desirous of honour