The old man, Santiago, who is still strong for his age and used to be a great fisherman. He perseveres through his problems, always being and optimist. The boy, Manolin, who used to fish with Santiago. The boy does not like to see the old man suffering and not catching any fish. The final character is the marlin that Santiago catches. The old man treats the fish like a person, giving it respect for being such a beautiful fish. There is a main conflict to this book, the struggle between the old man and the fish, which is the bulk of the book. Then after the fish is caught, the old man fights off sharks until he is exhausted. When the old man catches the fish, he has no idea what he’s up against, he only wishes that the fish would jump so he could see how big it was. Little did he know that the fish would drag him out to sea for 3 days before he jumped. After seeing the fish jump and seeing it’s beauty, the old man almost hated to kill it, but he had no choice. To kill the fish, he thrust a harpoon through its heart, finally succeeding and catching the biggest fish he’d ever seen. Unfortunately, all the blood attracted sharks, which the old man tried to fight off, to no avail