Too much hopefulness is folly

Hope is something that helps you stay alive at difficult times. It's a driving force inside you and keeps you motivated for action. Only hope provides you energy to fight with adversities in case you lose all your strength and stamina. But too much of it befools and drags you to the middle of the vast ocean of troubles and failure. Ultimately it hurts.  

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is a great novel with the eponymous theme. Through the lonely sufferings of an old fisherman in the vast ocean, the novel shows the limitations and disadvantages of human hopefulness.

After spending 87 days in the sea without catching any fish, Santiago, the old fisherman finally finds his luck in a great fish that is eighteen feet long. He has been deserted by his apprentice, Manolin, a young boy who is forced to leave the old man unwillingly by his parents because he is regarded as 'unlucky' to catch a fish.

The mysterious fish has swallowed his bait. He follows it for three days and two nights on his small kiff in the vast ocean even without having a chance to see it. He only hopes it to be a big fish that will fetch him a good sum of money in the market. He dreams of catching the fish. So to keep himself alive and awake he tries very hard with raw meat of fishes. He fights with muscle cramp in his left hand and tries to forget the severe back pain. He keeps talking to himself to kill his loneliness.

Finally, he sees the fish that he is pursuing. The fish, his hope and dream in reality, appears much bigger than he had guessed earlier. Using his experience and fisherman's skills, he is able to kill the fish but the carcass is too big for the space inside the kiff. Then, the old man ties the fish's snout with a rope and rows towards the bank. But he and his fish are attacked by many sharks one after another. Though he manages to kill some of them and to injure others, he cannot save his fish from them. Only the bony head remains when he reaches the shore defeated and exhausted. While being attacked by sharks, the old man repeats his remorse for going out too 'far' (being overly hopeful and ambitious) many times. Finally, he has no zeal or zest left in his body and mind. He hopelessly surrenders to the cruelty of his fate.