the lottery as hope

The lottery as hope is a small but significant motif in The Old Man and the Sea, a concrete expression of the faith that Santiago and Manolin maintain in the face of Santiago's eighty-four-day run without a fish. It is not a grand philosophical stance but a practical, almost superstitious act of optimism, a way to purchase a chance at a better future when all other signs point to defeat. The lottery ticket, with its specific number, becomes a tangible token of the belief that luck can change, a belief that is central to the relationship between the old man and the boy and to Santiago's own undefeated spirit.

The Ritual of the Number

The idea of the lottery is first introduced on the evening before Santiago's fateful voyage, as he and Manolin discuss the coming day. "Do you think we should buy a terminal of the lottery with an eighty-five?" Santiago asks, referring to the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak. "Tomorrow is the eighty-fifth day." The number is not arbitrary; it is a direct challenge to the eighty-four days of failure, a deliberate attempt to invert the pattern. Manolin immediately engages with the idea, asking, "But what about the eighty-seven of your great record?"—referring to a previous, even longer period of bad luck that Santiago had once overcome. The old man dismisses the possibility of repeating that record, insisting, "It could not happen twice." The negotiation over the number is a shared act of planning, a moment where the two characters together construct a small, hopeful narrative for the next day. The boy agrees to order a single sheet of the lottery, which costs two dollars and a half, a sum neither of them has. Manolin declares, "I can always borrow two dollars and a half," but Santiago demurs, saying, "I think perhaps I can too. But I try not to borrow. First you borrow. Then you beg." The lottery, then, is not just a gamble; it is a test of their resourcefulness and a boundary of their pride.

Hope as a Shared Commodity

The lottery is one of several small, hopeful fictions that Santiago and Manolin maintain together. Earlier that same evening, they go through a daily ritual where the boy asks about food and the old man claims to have a pot of yellow rice with fish, even though both know there is no such pot and that the cast net has been sold. This shared pretense is a form of mutual care, a way of preserving dignity. The lottery proposal operates in the same register: it is a plan for a future that neither can afford, yet the act of planning it is itself a source of hope. The boy's willingness to borrow the money and the old man's reluctance to do so reveal their different relationships with luck and pride. Manolin is more pragmatic, willing to incur a small debt for a chance at a large gain, while Santiago, who has already endured so much, is more cautious about the moral cost of borrowing. The lottery, like the imaginary meal, is a bond between them, a shared investment in the possibility that tomorrow will be different.

The Contrast with the Outcome

The lottery as hope stands in stark contrast to the actual outcome of Santiago's voyage. He hooks and kills a magnificent marlin, only to have it devoured by sharks, leaving him with nothing but a skeleton. When he returns, exhausted and defeated, he tells Manolin, "They beat me. They truly beat me." The boy insists, "He didn't beat you. Not the fish," and Santiago agrees, "No. Truly. It was afterwards." The hope that the lottery represented—the hope of a single, transformative stroke of luck—is not fulfilled. Instead, Santiago experiences a triumph that is immediately and brutally undone. The lottery ticket, if it had been bought, would have been a symbol of the very kind of easy fortune that the sea refuses to grant. The old man's real victory is not in catching a fish that can be sold, but in the endurance and skill he demonstrates, a victory that no lottery can confer. The motif of the lottery, then, serves to highlight the difference between the hope for luck and the reality of a fisherman's life, where success is earned through suffering and is never secure.

The Persistence of Hope in Defeat

Despite the devastating loss, the motif of hope does not entirely disappear. After Santiago's return, Manolin, who has been crying, tells the old man, "Now we fish together again." When Santiago protests that he is no longer lucky, the boy replies, "The hell with luck. I'll bring the luck with me." This is a rejection of the lottery-like, external notion of luck in favor of a personal, relational one. The boy's loyalty and his determination to learn from Santiago become a new kind of hope, one that is not dependent on a number or a ticket. The old man, in his final conversation with the boy, immediately begins to plan for the future, discussing a new killing lance made from a spring leaf from an old Ford. The hope that was once invested in the lottery is now reinvested in practical preparations and in the boy's companionship. The dream of the lions, which returns to Santiago at the very end of the book, is the ultimate symbol of this enduring, internal hope—a hope that requires no purchase and cannot be lost to the sea.