First Impression of old man and the boy

After reading the first couple of pages of the Old Man and the Sea it is evident that the old man is a father figure to the boy. Though the boy has a family, he seems to like to be with the old man whether they are fishing or not. He states how he wants to be fishing with the old man even though they didn’t catch anything in the time that they spent working together. As a father would, the old man makes it clear that he wants what is best for the boy. He tells him he wants him to stay with the other boat because it is luckier. Even though the old man also likes working with the boy, he knows he is better off to work on the other boat. The boy talks to him about when they first started working together and how old he was. The old man tells him that he was only five the first time they went out and about how he was almost killed. The boy then tells him that he remembers everything about fishing with him. This shows how big of an impression the old man left on the boy simply from fishing with him. The old man also knows that the boy needs to stay with his family. He makes a remark about how if he were his own son he would take him gambling, but the boy needs to respect his father and his family. This really shows how much the old man cares for the boy. It is easy to see the respect for the old man from the boy because of his desire to help him work even though he doesn’t technically work for the old man. There is definitely a strong connection between these two characters. It will be interesting to see how the boy develops and changes through the course of the novel and how the relationship between these two changes.