Hemmingway's "Old Man and the Sea is about man's struggle and ambition." Analyse this assertion.

I would say that The Old Man in the
Sea is much more about struggle or the struggle WITH ambition than it is
about ambition only.  By saying, "Santiago struggles with ambition" makes him sound
arrogant, which he is not.

Divide your paper into two
parts: struggle and ambition.  Look for ideas first.  Then find quotes and facts as
support.  Then, synthesize all the ideas, quotes, and facts into topic and clincher
sentences.  Voila!  That's the outline of your
paper.

Santiago struggles throughout the book.  He
struggles with his age, his bad luck as a fisherman, his peers who taunt him, his role
as a teacher of Manolin, his relationship with his daughter.  And that's all on the
island.

At sea, Santiago struggles with nature: the marlin,
the sharks, the ocean, and the weather.  But, he loves nature: the sea is his mother,
and the fish is his brother.  Santiago hates sharks: they are the only evil in the
book.

Mostly, he struggles with himself: his old hands, his
arms, his strength, his dreams, his courage.

Santiago is
not prideful: he has no false ambitions.  His ambitions are realistic and humble.  He
wants to go far out and catch a big fish.  He wants to end his bad luck streak.  He
wants to end his suffering.  He wants an honorable death for the fish.  Like a
Christ-figure, he knows he is destined to suffer, and he suffers humbly, without
regret.

Santiago's struggles and ambitions are mirrored by
Hemingway the writer.  Hemingway is like Santiago, in that he is struggling to write the
book itself (the marlin).  He is struggling against literary critics who try to tear his
book apart (like sharks).  Overall, Hemingway is trying to show the sufferings of an
artist through the allegory of a fisherman.