The Old Man and
the Sea
Summary and analysis
compilation.
The Old Man and the Sea
Summary
The story begins, as you might expect, with an old man. He is a fisherman who has not caught a fish in 84 days. He is
also not eating very much. The two factors are related. We also meet a boy who is dear friends with the old
man. The old man taught him to fish when he was young, and the boy brings the old man food. Does our
language sound elementary and clipped? That’s because Hemingway’s prose is. His is just eight million times
better than ours.
So that sets the stage. We’d also like to note that the old man has a name (Santiago), as does the young boy
(Manolin), but the text always refers to them as "the old man" and "the boy." So this old man goes to sleep
dreaming of the lions he used to see back in the day in Africa. He wakes before sunrise and does what
fishermen do – namely, get in his boat and head out to fish.
Not too long after that, the old man hooks a really, really, ridiculously big fish. A "marlin" to be more exact. An
earth-shattering struggle of mythical proportions follows. Most of the novella consists of this struggle, which
lasts over three days. It is a battle of strength and of wills. The old man sees the fish as his brother, not his
enemy, yet never wavers in his resolution to kill the thing. Which, ultimately, he does.
But this is no happy ending. It’s just a happy mid-point followed by an extraordinarily sad ending. The old man
straps the fish to the side of the boat and heads home. On the way, he is attacked by sharks, who slowly but
surely eat away at the marlin while the old man, starving and exhausted, tries to beat them off with a harpoon, a
club, and finally nothing but a simple knife. By the time he makes it back to shore, there is nothing left of the fish
but a skeleton. The old man goes to sleep and dreams of the same lions of his youth.
Summary day 1
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First of all, the old man doesn’t have a name. So he will henceforth be known as...The Old Man. Wait, make
that the old man. No capitals.
So about this old man: he hasn’t caught a fish in 84 days. Which can be debilitating when fishing is your
livelihood.
They call him salao, which basically means "really, really, ridiculously unlucky."
There’s a boy without a name who feels bad for the old man. These no-namers need to stick together. So the
boy helps the old man out.
We get some physical description of the old man: wrinkly, blotchy, and eyes the color of the sea.
OK, so he does have a name after all, but only the boy uses it, not the text. Were you wondering what this
name was? Read your book.
Ugh, fine. It’s "Santiago."
Turns out the man taught the boy to fish. You know, before he stopped being able to himself. The boy loves the
man in return.
There was another fish dry spell in the past, but it ended. Maybe this one will, too. Then again...
They sit on "the Terrace" and the other fishermen make fun of the old man. But he’s unfazed.
In case you were wondering what that stench was, there’s a shark factory nearby.
The boy keeps trying to help the old man, but the old man wants the boy to just watch out for himself.
Some reminiscences between them: When the boy was five, they caught a HUGE green fish that nearly tore the
boat apart.
P.S. The boy? He’s not related to the old man. He has his own mother and father.
The boy buys some sardines for the old man.
OK, in case you haven’t read Hemingway before, you should know something about his sentences. They’re
about ten words long and never beat around the bush.
For example, you are directly told that the old man is 1) humble, and 2) proud. Hmmm…
The old man and the boy discuss the fishing for the next day, and how the old man has good eyesight despite
being old and having "gone turtling," which we all know is BRUTAL on the eyes.
A cliffhanger question is raised: is the old man too old to handle a big fish?
The old man seems to have some prestige around the town; it’s noted that people in the town would never steal
from him. But he locks his stuff up anyway.
Next, we get to see the old man’s shack, which isn’t exactly The Ritz-Carlton, what with the tree-made walls and
the dirt floors.
He’s got some religious items on the wall that used to be his wife’s. He can’t bear to have her picture up on the
wall because he’s lonely. So we’re thinking she died.
The old man and the boy discuss what to have for dinner.
There is no dinner.
What a charade.
They discuss baseball – Yankees and DiMaggio.
They note that tomorrow will be day 85 of no fish. That’s optimistic as far as tomorrow is concerned. Also, the
fisherman’s personal record is 87. Not that it’s the kind of record you want to have.
The old man says that he could not possibly get to day 87 a second time.
It’s September, by the way. Which any astrologer knows, as the old man does, is the month of really, really,
ridiculously big fish.
The boy checks out to go get sardines. When he comes back, the old man is sleeping.
The boy covers him up with a blanket, noting the strength of the old man’s shoulders.
When the old man wakes up, they talk about dinner again. The difference is, this time, there actually is dinner.
Turns out "the owner," named Martin, gave them the food. This is not a first time occurrence. They should pay
him back, they think, just as soon as they catch a really, really, ridiculously big fish.
The boy berates himself for being thoughtless and plans to get the old man more clothes for the upcoming
winter (it’s September, remember?).
More baseball chit-chat. They were too afraid to take this guy Dick Sisler fishing, and they wish they could take
DiMaggio fishing.
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The old man is all, "You think you’re cool? I was on a ship in Africa when I was your age." Except he’s a lot
nicer than that. He also saw lions in Africa. Keep that in mind.
Mmmm – back to baseball.
But then onto age, and how old people get up really early.
The old man sleeps on newspapers, and uses newspapers as a pillow, which is not the most comfortable thing
in the world.
The old man dreams of Africa, and the lions on the beaches.
He used to dream of fish and his wife and other women, but now he ONLY dreams of places, and lions. But
mostly lions.
Day 2
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He wakes up freezing and has to pee outside. Sorry, it’s "urinate."
The old man wakes the boy by...holding his foot.
Ooh, the nameless boy has a name after all. It’s "Manolin." At least, that’s what the old man calls him. The text
still calls him "the boy."
The boy helps the old man carry stuff, and by "stuff" we mean boat gear.
The old man drinks coffee, knowing it is all he will eat all day.
By the way, they are up really, really early. The moon’s still out.
As he rows out in his skiff, the old man muses on the sights, smells, sounds – i.e., all his senses are working
and acute.
He likes the flying fish. But not as much as he likes the birds, who are "looking and almost never finding."
They’re the only creatures he can think of who have it worse than he does.
The ocean is cruel. And the birds are delicate. Is that a haiku?
About the ocean: everyone thinks of the ocean as a woman. That is, all the old, wise people. The arrogant
youngsters call the ocean a man.
The old man rows really well. That’s what a life on the ocean will do to you.
He uses the sardines to set bait lines at different depths in the water. This guy really knows what he’s doing.
Ooh, great line about luck and skill. The old man would rather have skill, but he still believes in luck.
Again, we hear about his eyes – the sun hurts them, but they’re still good eyes.
He sees a man-of-war bird circling above, which he thinks the bird must "have something."
The something turns out to be a flying fish.
The old man perceives a dolphin in the water.
The bird can’t catch the fish, he decides, because the fish are too big and fast.
Screw these little flying fish. The old man wants a big honkin’ one.
The old man sees a man-of-war jellyfish and calls it a whore.
Beautiful, that jellyfish, but dangerous. The old man likes to see the sea turtles eating them. He also likes to
step on them on the beach. The jellyfish, that is.
He likes things with "elegance" and "speed," but hates slow lumbering things.
Some important stuff: the old man compares himself to the sea turtles, because their hearts beat after they are
cut up into little pieces. Feeling sorry for them does not, however, preclude eating their eggs.
Tuna! Not a tuna sandwich on rye, but a school of tuna that the old man pursues.
He catches a tuna. So much for reaching day 88. He can kiss that record good-bye.
OK, just kidding. This fish doesn’t count. He uses it for bait for a bigger fish, which is kind of like a guy with a
gambling problem putting the chips he just won back on the table.
By the way, the old man has been talking to himself since, oh, let’s see...the moment he left the boy on the
shore. We didn’t really notice until he pointed it out to us by wondering how many years he’s been talking to
himself.
This goes against a fisherman credo thingy that says don’t talk unless you have to on the sea.
He’s allowed to seem like he’s crazy since no one is around to tell him he’s crazy.
As if the tuna were not enough, suddenly there’s a marlin pulling on one of the lines way the hell down deep.
Know what a marlin is? It’s a really, really, ridiculously big fish.
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There’s about three pages of hoping the marlin eats the sardines and hasn’t gone away, might have gone away,
but didn’t, then might have gone away again, and so on. Lots of tension, anyway. Tension, like the fishing line...
The old man shows off his prowess. His fishing prowess. And he’s superstitious.
The old man taunts the fish verbally, with phrase like "eat it well."
Then he pulls on the line, hard. How hard? There’s about two paragraphs telling you if you feel so inclined. Old
Man vs. Fish begins at high noon. Or possibly medium-low noon.
The old man momentarily wishes the boy were there
Cut to four hours into the match. Old Man is holding Fish steady.
The old man talks about "the glow from Havana." In case you didn’t know where this was all taking place.
He repeatedly wants to know what the fish looks like, what he is up against.
Keep in mind – the whole time this is going on, the man has the line stretched taut across his back. This is
excruciating work, and it continues into the cold night.
He realizes the boat is moving in the current; he can’t see land anymore, but he’s not about to let this
ginormous fish go for a trivial little problem like drifting out to sea.
He stops to pee.
He wonders about baseball and wishes he had a radio to give him the news.
He tells himself that he has to eat the tuna in the morning, no matter what, to stay strong.
The old man muses on the strength of the fish. Is the fish thinking about him, he wants to know.
He remembers this one time at band camp when he hooked a male and female marlin, together.
What happened is he clubbed the female to death, and then the male jumped up to see how she was doing.
The old man, who was with the boy at the time, felt sad.
He wishes again that the boy were there.
There’s some rocking thoughts on choices – what was the fish’s choice, what was the man’s choice?
Sometime before sunrise the NEXT day, one of the other lines gets taken. The old man has no time to mess
around with whatever ten pound tuna might have snagged it, so he cuts it loose with one hand, and does lots of
other impressive one-handed things, like handstands and cartwheels and juggling, all while holding the line with
the massive marlin.
But then he thinks, aw...I wonder what that other fish was that I just let go.
He wishes AGAIN for the boy. That makes three.
He has to do some advanced fisherman stuff, namely "cutting away" and "hooking up the two reserve coils."
We’re now at hour 15 or so of Old Man vs. Fish, and we have no idea if it’s round one or two or if these guys
even play by those rules. And in this hour fifteen, Fish scores a massive set of points by surging forward and
cutting the old man below the eye (with the line). Blood follows.
The man talks to the fish now. He’ll stay with him until he’s dead. Himself, not the fish. Well, whichever one
comes first.
He keeps comparing himself to the fish – he presumes the fish is thinking the same "to the death" thoughts that
he is.
DAY 3
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s the sun rises, the old man realizes the fish doesn’t seem to be getting tired. But he is swimming closer to the
surface, which means he might jump.
The old man addresses the fish again. I love you, he says, but I will kill you.Fatal Attraction, anyone?
The old man sees a bird flying low, who must be very tired.
The bird perches on the line and the old man talks to it, telling it that it shouldn’t be so tired.
He then refers to the fish as a friend. The fish responds by almost pulling the old man overboard. His hand is
bleeding. Love hurts.
He says again that he 1) must eat the tuna and that 2) wishes the boy were there. Think of it as a chorus in a
song.
He washes his bloody hand in the water. Shoot, he thinks, I really need my hands for this.
His hand cramps up and he chastises it as if it were a misbehaving child. Except he essentially says "screw
you" to it, which isn’t a recommended child rearing tactic.
After all this talk about eating the tuna, the old man finally...eats the tuna.
Interestingly, the old man wishes he could feed the marlin, his "brother."
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He sees some wild ducks and realizes that a person is never alone on the sea.
The weather is good – except for being hurricane season. Seriously, though, he would be able to see it coming,
if a hurricane was on the way. There’s a little birdie that tells him so.
He finds his cramp to be humiliating.
He wishes the boy were there to massage the cramp away.
The fish starts coming toward the surface. This is hugely exciting.
The fish comes out of the water. He’s purple and longer than the boat. Holy cow.
Interestingly, the old man says he has to hide the fish’s strength from him. He notes that people are smarter, but
fish more noble.
The old man has seen fish this size, but never caught one by himself.
But why did the fish jump? The old man doesn’t know, either.
He’s spending all this time thinking (mostly about his cramped hand) and wishes he were the fish – life would be
so much easier. Except for the whole hook in your mouth thing.
Since brute strength appears not to be working, the old man says some prayers and talks about making a
religious pilgrimage.
No, wait, he just promises that he will make the pilgrimage if he catches the fish. Dude, you have to pay the
cashier before you get the merchandise.
He decides to re-bait the other lines so he can catch some smaller fish to eat in case the marlin decides to
spend another night in Hotel Agony by the Sea.
He comments on being "a strange old man."
Next comes, in our humble opinion, the most important paragraph in the entire book. Read it. The one about
proving oneself. Read it again.
THEN he proceeds to talk about the LIONS. Coincidence? Most certainly not.
The old man recalls that, once upon a time, he could see decently well in the dark.
He comments on the fish being strange.
He thinks about baseball. He knows who’s playing whom.
He compares himself, DiMaggio, and some fighting cocks. Oh, and the fish, who he still wants to be.
I’m totally screwed if there are sharks, he thinks.
How much fun is arm wrestling? The old man remembers competing at it for two straight days (one round!)
against a black man in Casablanca. They played it ‘till their fingers bled. Was the summer of...we don’t know the
year.
Everyone watched them, refereed, placed bets, stood around and gaped at their ridiculous stamina.
He almost lost, almost lost, almost lost, and then....he won.
After that, everyone called him The Champion. Rock on, old man.
The old man could have been champion of the world. At least in arm wrestling. But he decided he needed his
right hand for fishing.
He tried to arm wrestle with his left hand, but it betrayed him. (Yes, that’s the same hand cramping up at the
moment.)
He hopes for a dolphin so he’ll have something to eat.
He wonders why the fish are purple.
Right around night time (night number two), he gets a dolphin on the other line. He clubs it across the head.
The fish hasn’t changed at all. It’s just slower. Which, last time we checked, counts as change.
When to gut the dolphin? We agonize over such decisions ourselves.
He rigs up the line so that the boat is taking a lot of the strain, instead of him.
Eating this food? Not pleasant, considering it’s bloody and occasionally still flopping about. The man hasn’t
eaten in a day and it’s a painful process to FORCE this food into his stomach.
The cramp is gone.
He looks at the stars. He is sad about killing the fish, but glad he doesn’t have to kill the stars. Now THAT would
be a battle.
He’s still up for killing the fish, but sad that people will eat this noble creature.
He believes that hunger will be the end of this big fish.
There is a constant concern that the fish may break the line.
He figures out that he needs to sleep in order to not "become unclear in the head."
He cuts open the dolphin and finds two flying fish inside, which is essentially like a Christmas present, or
possibly a very disgusting Easter Egg.
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He eats the raw fish.
He notes there will be bad weather in three to four days, which means this fish business better be done soon.
He doesn’t dream about lions. He dreams about porpoises instead. And thenhe dreams about the lions. Phew.
And he is happy.
Day 4
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What’s the nicest way to be woken up? NOT by a really, really, ridiculously big fish jerking on the line in your
right hand. Also, his rotten left hand is asleep again. While on duty, which is completely grounds for dismissal,
or at least a sound verbal lashing.
The fish jumps out of the water, again and again.
The line rips through the old man’s hands and cuts them, leading the old man to wish the boy were there.
The good news is, when a fish jumps out of the water, it gets air in its air sacks and can’t dive deep anymore.
Score.
The fish is still strange.
The old man debates whether to force some more of the raw dolphin down his throat and risk throwing up, or to
not eat and risk passing out from weakness. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
So he eats the flying fish.
Bring it on, he says. The sun also rises, again.
The fish begins "circling."
This lasts about two more hours.
He starts to see some black spots in front of his eyes, so he makes more promises to say prayers later.
As the fish circles, the old man pulls in line.
Two gray sucking fish are harassing the big fish.
He is so close to harpooning the fish, he can taste it.
Then the old man says he does not care who kills who – just get this d--n thing over with.
He is on the verge of passing out when he finally sticks a harpoon into the marlin.
The marlin is dead.
He wants to thank the fish, who he thinks weighs around 1,500 pounds.
DiMaggio would be proud, he thinks.
He heads home. With the fish, naturally.
He comments again on the strangeness of the fish’s death – the way it jumped out of the water when he
harpooned it.
The fish is lashed to the side of the boat (it’s too big to fit in it) and the old man, who’s going a little nuts,
wonders who is leading the show here, him or the dead marlin.
The problem with the marlin is it’s bleeding. The problem with the blood is the sharks.
The old man harpoons the first shark that approaches in the brain. It dies. But not before taking one 40-pound
bite out of the marlin. That’s twelve dollars. Which is a ton of money for the old man.
The old man felt that he was hit and bitten when the fish was hit and bitten.
He wishes he were alone in his newspaper bed and had never hooked the fish at all.
He says a man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Problem: the harpoon went down with the shark.
DiMaggio would have liked the way he hit the shark. Home run.
He has no weapon, so he makes one out of lashing his knife to the tip an the oar.
He wonders if it was a sin to kill the fish. But he was born to do this.
Think again – was it a sin because he loved the fish, or not a sin because he loved the fish?
He thinks that fishing keeps him alive. No, wait, that’s the boy, he says.
He eats some of the marlin on the way in.
Two more sharks are on the way, followed by some Christ-imagery.
The sharks are excited and stupid and lumbering.
The old man manages to kill the sharks – using his makeshift spear.
But a fourth of the marlin is now gone. The old man apologizes to the fish for catching him at all, for losing his
body to the sharks.
The problem is, the sharks tore up the fish, which means more blood, which means more sharks.
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The old man keeps wishing this had all been a dream.
With the next shark, the knife blade on the makeshift spear snaps.
The old man says he is too old to try and club the rest of the sharks to death. But he’ll try, d--n it.
He keeps talking to himself about being tired.
He wonders if anyone has worried about him when he’s been gone. The boy, and the older fishermen, certainly.
He considers that he could have chopped off the marlin’s nose spear thing to fight with. That would have been
fighting together, with his brother, he thinks.
He wants to buy luck, if anyone’s selling.
He’s getting close to land; he fears the sharks; he hopes he will not have to fight again.
By midnight there’s a pack of sharks, and he can do nothing. But he tries. He clubs and clubs like there’s no
tomorrow.
He breaks his tiller trying to fight the sharks. He’s so exhausted he tastes blood in the back of his throat.
He sails on, lightly; there is no fish left.
He thinks of his "friends": the wind, and bed.
He believes he was not beaten; it was just his own fault for going out too far.
He makes it to shore; no one is around, so he pulls the boat up himself.
He falls on the beach, with the mast on his shoulder. The old man has to stop and rest five times before he can
make it to his shack.
Day 5
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The boy finds the old man asleep the next morning and, seeing his hands, starts to cry. And cry.
Everyone (the fishermen) is on the beach, measuring the eighteen-footskeleton.
We find out in conversation that the boy took "two fine fish" the day before. But he doesn’t want to talk about his
fish.
The boy brings coffee to the old man, who says, "They beat me." Not the fish, he says, but "afterwards."
They searched for him while he was gone, it turns out.
The old man likes having someone to talk to.
The old man doesn’t want the boy to fish with him, since he (the old man) is unlucky.
Screw luck, says the boy.
They decide the old man needs to heal himself before he falls apart at the seams.
He asks for the newspapers from the days he was gone.
The old man insists in giving the head (all that’s left of the fish) to Pedrico, the guy who gave them food at the
beginning of the story.
Some silly tourists ask about the skeleton, which is now garbage at the edge of the sea, and misunderstand the
answer, thinking it to be a shark. Oh, the irony.
And the old man? The old man is dreaming about the lions.
Themes:
1. Perseverance
The old man’s battle with the fish is not only a battle of strength, but a battle of wills. The old man makes up for his old age
with incredible endurance, willing to withstand hunger, physical pain, and isolation from the rest of the world as
he battles the fish. Endurance becomes a way we connect the old man and the fish he fights, as they share a
determination that, in its magnitude, separates them from other people and creatures.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
What exactly is the old man so determined to do? OK, "catch a fish" doesn’t count. Why catch the fish? What is
he determined to do it for?
Does the old man’s determination pay off?
Take your answer to question one. Got it? The new question is…does he achieve this?
Quotes :
1.
“I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe
to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well.
Just then, watching his lines, he saw one of the projecting green sticks dip
sharply.” (2.54, 2.55).
2. “Nothing happened. The fish just moved away slowly and the old man could
not raise him an inch. His line was strong and made for heavy fish and he
held it against his hack until it was so taut that beads of water were jumping
from it. Then it began to make a slow hissing sound in the water and he still
held it, bracing himself against the thwart and leaning back against the pull.
The boat began to move slowly off toward the north-west.” (2.75)
3. “What I will do if he decides to go down, I don’t know. What I’ll do if he
sounds and dies I don’t know. But I’ll do something. There are plenty of
things I can do.” (2.78)
2.
Suffering
In The Old Man and the Sea, the ability to withstand physical pain is one of Santiago’s defining characteristics. Suffering
is a necessary step in his battle with the fish. It adds intensity to the struggle, and commands a respect from the
reader. The mental anguish of losing the fish to the sharks is surprisingly underplayed; this is a type of pain, it
seems, that can be controlled by sheer willpower.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Is the old man the only one that feels pain? Think again – bet you forgot about Manolin (that’s the boy) crying at
the end. Does that count?
What’s the worst kind of pain the old man feels, and when does he feel it?
Let’s say the old man struggled painlessly against the fish, in the sense that it wasn’t much of a struggle at all.
Imagine it. OK, now you can answer this question: How is pain a necessary element of The Old Man and the
Sea?
Are the old man and the fish similar in the way they handle and experience pain? What does this say about the
man and the fish?
Quotes :
1. “All my life the early sun has hurt my eyes, he thought. Yet they are still good.
In the evening I can look straight into it without getting the blackness. It has
more force in the evening too. But in the morning it is painful.” (2.31)
2. “it was cold after the sun went down and the old man’s sweat dried cold on
his back and his arms and his old legs. During the day he had taken the sack
that covered the bait box and spread it in the sun to dry. After the sun went
down he tied it around his neck so that it hung down over his back and he
cautiously worked it down under the line that was across his shoulders now.
The sack cushioned the line and he had found a way of leaning forward
against the bow so that he was almost comfortable. The position actually was
only somewhat less intolerable; but he thought of it as almost comfortable.
(2.84)
3. So he did it. It was difficult in the dark and once the fish made a surge that
pulled him down on his face and made a cut below his eye. The blood ran
down his cheek a little way. But it coagulated and dried before it reached his
chin and he worked his way back to the bow and rested against the wood. He
adjusted the sack and carefully worked the line so that it came across a new
part of his shoulders and, holding it anchored with his shoulders, he carefully
felt the pull of the fish and then felt with his hand the progress of the skiff
through the water. (2.103)
3.
Strength and Skill Theme
One interesting question in The Old Man and the Sea is whether physical strength is as important as skill and experience.
The old man may, admittedly, not be as strong as in his youth, but he makes up for it and more with his
knowledge of the sea and his fishing prowess. Which ultimately prevails over the fish is open to interpretation
and an interesting question to debate. In the text, we also get a glimpse of the deterioration of strength over
time, and how a man who relies on strength in his profession can fight against this.
Questions What’s more important, skill and experience, or strength?
1.
2.
3.
The old man has both skill and strength. Right? Or not?
What about the fish? Is he just dumb and strong, or is he skilled, too?
Has the old man’s strength faded over time, or not? Look at the physical descriptions of his body. Also look at
the huge fish he caught with his bare hands.
Quotes :
1. “The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck.
The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its
reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down
the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from
handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They
were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.” (1.2)
2. "But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?" "I think so. And there
are many tricks." (1.48, 1.49)
3. “When the boy came back the old man was asleep in the chair and the sun
was down. The boy took the old army blanket off the bed and spread it over
the back of the chair and over the old man’s shoulders. They were strange
shoulders, still powerful although very old, and the neck was still strong too
and the creases did not show so much when the old man was asleep and his
head fallen forward. His shirt had been patched so many times that it was like
the sail and the patches were faded to many different shades by the sun. The
old man’s head was very old though and with his eyes closed there was no
life in his face. The newspaper lay across his knees and the weight of his arm
held it there in the evening breeze. He was barefooted”. (1.86)
4.
Pride
In The Old Man and the Sea, pride and humility are not mutually exclusive qualities. The old man is declaratively
characterized as humble, yet he "suffers no loss of pride" in being so. Later, however, his pride is referred to as
"long gone." What does it mean to be proud, the text asks us to consider. Humility, it seems, is a beneficial
characteristic, as it keeps the old man sound and rational in his decisions on the sea. Santiago briefly wonders
if pride is a problem, if killing for pride makes the act a sin.
Questions
1.
2.
Amazingly, the old man seems to be both proud and humble. How is this possible? Does pride help or hurt the
old man in his battle against the marlin? What about humility?
Based on his memories and stories, has the old man gained or lost pride over time?
Quotes :
1. “Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had
attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not
disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. (1.36)
2.
"Who gave this to you?"
"Martin. The owner." "I must thank him."
"I thanked him already," the boy said. "You don’t need to thank him." "I’ll
give him the belly meat of a big fish," the old man said. "Has he done this
for us more than once?"
"I think so."
3.
"I must give him something more than the belly meat then. He is very
thoughtful for us." (1.99-1.105)
"I told the boy I was a strange old man," he said. "Now is when I must
prove it."
The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was
proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about
the past when he was doing it.
I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he
thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is left?” (3.3.76-3.78)
5. Memory
and the Past
Memory is a dominant theme in The Old Man and the Sea. Because of his age, the old man can recall a strength and
prowess of his youth. We at first wonder if such elements have faded from his character over time, but are left
with a suspicion that the old man in his strength and abilities has lived up to heroic image we see portrayed in
his memories of his younger self. We also see that memory is overlaid with current action, that the past can be
used to comment on the present (compare the old man’s struggle with the black man in Casablanca to his battle
with the fish). The old man’s memory of the lions is a constant motif, as he implicitly compares his own abilities
to their prowess and pride.
Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
What’s up with the lions? When does the old man dream about them, and what is the significance of the fact
that they are from his past. He’s not making this stuff up.
How do the old man’s specific memories make commentary on the present? For example, there’s the arm
wrestling struggle as compared to the battle with the marlin.
Does the old man’s past represent a better time in his life?
How is the boy’s relationship to the old man dependent on their past together?
Quotes :
1. How old was I when you first took me in a boat?"
"Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he
nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?"
"I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and
the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow
where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the
noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood
smell all over me."
"Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?"
"I remember everything from when we first went together." (1.22-1.26)
6. Defeat
Is the old man defeated? This is a persistent question by the end of the story. The Old Man and the Sea asks its readers
to define defeat, to struggle with what it really means to be beaten. Interestingly, Santiago draws a distinction
between being destroyed and being defeated. Although the text does not explain, it seems that "destruction"
carries a physical connotation (the old man identifies "something broken" in his chest), but defeat implies the
breaking of one’s spirit, a psychological or spiritual act.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
What does "defeat" mean in The Old Man and the Sea? Specifically, what does it mean to the old man? What
about to the fish?
Was the fish defeated by the old man, or by the sharks? What does the old man think about this?
We’re slightly obsessed with the passage where the old man thinks about how "a man can be destroyed but not
defeated." Which happens to the old man? Is he right or wrong?
Quotes :
1. “For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and
the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his
forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the
tension that he was pulling on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and
dizzy and that had worried him.
"I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this," he said. "Now that I have
him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I’ll say a hundred Our
Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now. (4.22, 4.23)
2. "But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not
defeated." I am sorry that I killed the fish though, he thought. Now the bad
time is coming and I do not even have the harpoon. (4.93)
3. Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death.
But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.
(4.132)
7. Isolation
The old man is a character isolated from people – and in fact from the world of humans entirely – in his time on the sea.
This isolation defines who he is, and emphasizes the unique nature of his character. Isolation becomes both a
weakness (he suffers from loneliness), but also a necessary element to his battle with the fish. Although the old
man accepts and admits help from others, it is alone that he does battle with the marlin, that he must prove
himself and his capabilities.
Questions About Isolation
1.
2.
3.
From what and whom is the old man isolated?
What is the effect of isolation on the old man? Does it help or hurt him? What does he do when isolated?
For what reasons does the man believe he wants the boy to be present? For what reason(s) does he really
want him present?
Quotes :
1. “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had
gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy
had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had
told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the
worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat
which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the
old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to
help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that
was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and,
furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.” (1.1)
2. Sometimes someone would speak in a boat. But most of the boats were
silent except for the dip of the oars. They spread apart after they were out of
the mouth of the harbour and each one headed for the part of the ocean
where he hoped to find fish. The old man knew he was going far out and he
left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning
smell of the ocean. (2.20)
8. Man and the Natural World
The old man is unique in his relationship to and understanding of the natural world. He talks about the sea as though it
were a woman, the birds as friends, the sharks as personal enemies. He examines the relationship between
turtles and jellyfish, between fish and birds. The creatures and the natural world become a lens through which
we examine the old man; they become parables and analogies that allow us to gain insight into his character.
The lions function in this same way, as they have much to do with the way the old man views himself. The Old
Man and the Sea also incites discussion as to the natural order of things; the old man justifies and interprets his
actions and the actions of others as things that they "are born to do." We see a sense of inescapability in these
ideas.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
How are things "supposed to be," according to the old man?
Is the old man more at home and happier with the boy, or chilling out in his boat?
How does the old man characterize the creatures he sees? What kinds of personalities does he give them?
Does the fact that he does this at all make him crazy, or kind of endearing?
Which animal is the old man most similar to?
Quotes :
1. “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color
as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. (1.3)
2. “Usually when he smelled the land breeze he woke up and dressed to go and
wake the boy. But tonight the smell of the land breeze came very early and
he knew it was too early in his dream and went on dreaming to see the white
peaks of the Islands rising from the sea and then he dreamed of the different
harbours and roadsteads of the Canary Islands.” (1.151)
3. “He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences,
nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only
dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young
cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed
about the boy.” (1.152)
9
Hunger
The old man is almost superhuman in his eating patterns. He never professes hunger, despite eating very little or not at
all. For him, eating is not about pleasure, but is instead a painful act that he must endure for strength. The old
man does at one point refer to hunger as pain, but in terms of the fish’s hunger, not his own.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
What’s up with the old man not eating? What effect does it have on the way we view him?
OK, so we get that the old man isn’t hungry for food. But is he hungry for something else?
Why does the old man eat?
Quotes :
1. “He also drank a cup of shark liver oil each day from the big drum in the
shack where many of the fishermen kept their gear. It was there for all
fishermen who wanted it. Most fishermen hated the taste. But it was no
worse than getting up at the hours that they rose and it was very good
against all colds and grippes and it was good for the eyes.” (2.46)
2. “No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable. I
must remember to eat the tuna before he spoils in order to keep strong.
Remember, no matter how little There is no sense in being anything but
practical though, he thought. I wish I had some salt. And I do not know
whether the sun will rot or dry what is left, so I had better eat it all although I
am not hungry. The fish is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I will be
ready.” (3.41)
3. “you want to, that you must eat him in the morning. Remember, he said to
himself.” (2.88)
10. Respect and Reputation
Although he does not recognize it himself, what makes the stakes of the battle with the marlin so high is the notion of
respect. The old man derives respect from others with displays of strength and prowess. Santiago himself feels
great awe and respect for the marlin, repeatedly emphasizing this during his struggle and after he has killed the
fish. Additionally, the old man’s friendships are based on mutual respect.
Questions
1.
2.
3.
So, these other fishermen – do they respect the old man, or think he’s just an old unlucky washed-up former
champion?
What does the old man get respect for? What does he respect in others? Are they different, or similar?
Does the old man’s respect for the marlin help him win the battle, or hinder him?
Quotes :
3. No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the
heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was quite
sure no local people would steal from him, the old man thought that a gaff
and a harpoon were needless temptations to leave in a boat. (1.51)
4. "There was nothing ever like them. He hits the longest ball I have ever
seen."
"Do you remember when he used to come to the Terrace?" I wanted to take
him fishing but I was too timid to ask him. Then I asked you to ask him and
you were too timid."
"I know. It was a great mistake. He might have gone with us. Then we would
have that for all of our lives." (1.120-1.122)
5. "Fish," he said, "I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead
before this day ends." (3.8)
Character Analysis:
1. The Old Man: Santiago,
The Old Man’s Struggle
Yes, we know, everyone’s wondering why the old man spends three days with a
fishing line stretched tight across his back, bleeding from three places and
eating raw, unsalted and nauseating fish bait. It’s a good question. The
easy answer is that the old man hasn’t caught a fish in eighty-four days
and he’s pretty much going to starve to death if he doesn’t catch
something soon. But we don’t really see starvation as much of a threat.
The old man doesn’t eat much anyway, and Manolin’s got his back. So
there are far, far bigger things at stake here.
But, you say, what could possibly be bigger than the basic human need to
eat? Plenty. Let’s start with pride, or the need to prove oneself. The old
man used to be El Campeon – the "Shaft" of the fishing community. And
now he’s just an old man that young guys laugh at. That’s not a chip on
your shoulder – that’s an entire bag of Doritos you’re carrying up there.
The old man has to prove that he’s still got what it takes.
The Old Man’s Name
Let’s start here. We only hear the name ‘Santiago’ four times; three from the boy,
and one really interesting occurrence when the old man is recalling his
epic arm wrestling match. That the boy calls him ‘Santiago’ makes sense
– "hey old man" isn’t exactly a name for your mentor and fishing guru, is
it? But the other time we hear his name is from the narrator, and it’s only
once. We are told of the time in Casablanca when the old man "was not
an old man […] but was Santiago El Campeon." Hmm, we think. It looks
like the old man has come to be defined by his age. And it looks like in his
battle with the marlin, he’s trying to be The Champion again, instead of the
old man. But he never loses his name; he’s still "the old man" by the end
of the text. So did he fail? Or can he be "the old man" and El Campeon at
the same time?
The Old Man and Hunger
The old man is never really hungry. He doesn’t eat, and tells the boy he is used
to fishing and competing in otherwise physically exhausting tasks without
a morsel. Amazing. It makes the old man almost superhuman. Or, you
could say, it makes him like an ascetic, a person that denies himself
indulgences generally for religious reasons. Where’s the religion part, you
ask? What a great essay topic!
Moving on. The old man does at times eat – just not for the reasons that
normal people do. He takes no pleasure in the act, and repeatedly forces
himself into it for the sole purpose of gaining strength. The old man is
single-minded in this goal. It gets more interesting when you compare him
to the marlin, who is trapped by his own hunger (that’s how fish get
caught, right?). The marlin got screwed for eating the bait; but the old man
ends up eating the same fish he used for bait – just like the marlin. It’s
almost as if the two are being compared…
The Arm-Wrestling Match as a Foil to the Battle with the
Marlin
We’re using an event as a foil to another event. Both are epic struggles, both are
a ‘one-person-has-to-lose’ deal, and both involve the old man’s pride, his
need to be El Campeon. What makes the arm-wrestling a foil is that it
comments on the marlin issue in an interesting way; the old man was
young and strong in Casablanca, but now he’s old and emaciated and
alone.
The Sharks as a Foil to the Marlin and the Old Man
OK, the sharks are a foil in the sense that they are NOT similar to the marlin. The
marlin is "beautiful" and "noble," but the sharks that attack at the end of
the fiasco are "hateful" and "scavengers." They are "stupid," not elegant.
The feelings of dislike we have toward the shark are not the feelings of
respect and reverence we (and the old man) have for the fish.
The Birds as a Reflection of the Old Man
The birds seem to come in at conveniently contemplative moments. When the
old man is talking to them, we get the feeling he’s really talking about
someone else – himself. He says of one bird that he won’t catch a fish,
because the fish are "too big for him and they go too fast." Sounds a lot
like doubts he might have about himself. When he’s feeling worn-out, he
chastises a bird for being tired. "What are birds coming to?" he wonders,
which could just as easily be read as, "What am I coming to?"
Timeline and Summary
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The old man hasn’t caught a fish in 84 days.
He sits in the terrace with Manolin.
They reminisce.
He and Manolin pretend to have dinner and talk about baseball.
The old man falls asleep.
He is woken by the boy and they eat.
The old man talks about the lions in Africa.
He dreams about the lions.
He wakes up and then wakes the boy.
He sets out on the fishing trip.
The old man muses on skill being better than luck, and the quality of his
eyes.
He watches the sea turtles and jellyfish and characterizes them.
He catches a tuna and uses it for bait.
The old man talks to himself
He hooks the marlin.
The agony of holding onto the fish lasts overnight.
He recollects having hooked a female marlin when her companion was
there.
He wishes the boy were there.
The old man hooks another fish and cuts it loose (no time to deal with that
now).
The old man muses a lot about the fish, how he wishes he could see it,
how it is his brother, etc.
The fish surges and cuts the old man below the eye with the line.
Another night passes.
The old man feels he really ought to eat the disgusting and raw tuna.
The old man gets a cramp in his hand.
He believes a man is never alone at sea.
He wishes the boy were there again.
He gets excited because the fish is jumping.
The old man is overwhelmed by the fish’s size.
The old man prays.
The old man talks about the lions.
He compares himself to DiMaggio.
He recalls the arm wrestling in Casablanca.
He hooks a dolphin and clubs it over the head. If only the marlin had gone
that easily...
His cramp goes away.
He looks at the stars and does what most people do when they look at
stars: muse on them.
He forces himself to eat some food.
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He takes a nap and dreams about the lions and is happy, or as happy as
one can be when staying in Hotel Agony by the Sea.
He is woken up by a sudden jerk from the fish.
He forces himself to eat again.
He harpoons the fish to death. Yay.
The old man is nervous about the blood in the water as he heads home.
He harpoons the first shark to death, but loses the harpoon in the process.
He ties a knife to the oar tip for a weapon.
He muses on whether or not it was a sin to kill the marlin.
More sharks come. These are the stupid kind.
He kills them, but they take a big chunk of dead marlin with them.
His body starts to fail him as he tries to club the following sharks to death.
He makes it home with the skeleton of the fish and heads to bed, resting
on the way.
He wakes and chills out with the boy. They talk about the extravaganza.
He asks for the newspapers.
He gives the fish head to Pedrico.
He dreams about the lions.
2- The Boy; Manolin
Santiago taught the boy to fish, and the boy loves him. That’s what Hemingway
tells us, and that’s about how he tells us, too. There’s no confusion, and
we don’t sit around wondering what’s the deal with these two. The boy is
the one human companion that the old man has, and he remarks
(internally) on how grateful he is to have the company when he comes
back. Most important, however, is the fact that the boy respects the old
man. He believes he is a great fisherman, age be damned, because he
knows Santiago’s skill and prowess.
Why does the old man repeatedly wish the boy were there? That’s an
interesting question. At first, it seems to be because he needs help, what
with the ginormous marlin and all. But you could also argue that it is for
companionship, that the old man is lonely. Or you could say he wants
someone to bear witness to his feat.
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The boy loves the man and wants to help him out.
He sits on the terrace with the old man.
They reminisce.
He offers to buy sardines for the old man.
He and the old man pretend to have dinner and talk about baseball.
Manolin goes out to buy sardines.
The boy comes back and waits for the old man to wake so they can eat.
They eat.
The boy leaves.
He is woken by the boy.
The boy helps the old man carry his gear, and then wishes him luck.
The fish circles and gets harpooned by the old man.
Manolin sees the old man when he has come back and cries.
He brings the old man coffee and they talk about the last few days.
He cries again
3- The Marlin +The Sharks
 The Marlin as both a friend and a foe to the old man. An honorable enemy
whom the old man respects and wants to defeat in an honorable fight. Unlike the
sharks who are depicted in the worst possible light as the thieves of the Oldman’s
efforts.
Character Role Analysis
Protagonist
The Old Man, or Santiago
No doubt here. The old man is clearly the protagonist. Partly because we have no one else to choose from (the
sea turtles were weak contenders), but mostly because we’re inside his head, we spend a ton of time
watching him, we feel sympathetic towards him, and his character development drives the story
The Old Man as a Mentor to the Boy
The old man taught the boy how to fish. The boy loves him for it. That’s about as straightforward as a mentor-student
relationship gets.
.
Antagonist
The Sharks
Ha! You thought we were going with the fish, didn’t you? Not so fast. We might try that one, too, but the sharks are more
antagonizing than the marlin. We don’t hate the marlin; we hate the sharks. They are simply greedy creatures
that take what the old man has fought for, and also seem to disrespect the marlin.
The Marlin
Let’s say the marlin is the antagonist. This makes sense – the old man does battle with the antagonist, and only one of
them can win. But this raises an interesting question: can you have an antagonist that you kind of like? That you
respect and feel sorry for? That is also your brother and friend?
The boy, or Manolin
Although he is not present during the struggle, he is still in our minds while the old man "wishes the boy were there." The
boy has uncompromising loyalty and respect for his idol.
Analysis / Symbolism
1. The lions:
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Hemingway just about sums it up when the old man asks: "Why are the lions the
main thing that is left?" What a fantastic question. The old man, we are
told, "no longer" dreams about people – just the places, and namely the
lions. You can go a few directions with this. First, the lions are a memory
from his youth. Much of his struggle with the fish is about proving that he’s
still there. The old man has a statement to make: he’s still around, and
he’s still rocking the boat. In other words, his past, including the lions, isn’t
just a distant memory.
The other question is, why lions? Why not geese or alligators? To start off,
lions are strong creatures, predators, hunters, just as the old man hunts
the marlin. They’re also the head honchos. Even though they’re at the top,
they have to go out every day, hunt, and prove that they’re, well, still the
head honchos.
Where are we getting this from? Take a look at paragraphs 76 and 77 on
day three (right before the memory of arm wrestling). The old man says he
needs to prove that he is a strange man. "Strange" doesn’t mean weird
here, rather unique, different. It is the old man’s strangeness that enables
him to be alone on the sea doing battle with a marlin for three days, just as
he calls the marlin "strange" for not being tired. But back to the proving
part. The old man has to prove, in a sense, his strength, his prowess, his
abilities. And he talks about having to prove it rather elegantly for a
paragraph. The very next paragraph is about the lions. See the
connection?
2. The Setting
Cuba, near Havana, in the 1940’s. Mostly on the water.
Most of the novella takes place in the old man’s boat out on the sea. Hence the
titleThe Old Man and the Sea, not The Old Man and His Shack, or The
Old Man and the Fishing Village. Santiago has to do battle not only with
the fish, but also with the elements, as he faces the sun (hurts his eyes)
and the night (too cold for comfort). The old man interacts with his
environment, commenting frequently on the sun, moon, and stars
3. Point of View: the
Narrator
Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and,
more importantly, can we trust her or him?
Third Person (Omniscient)
The point of view is rather self-explanatory. Some disembodied voice tells us
what’s up and head-hops from the old man’s thoughts to the thoughts of
the boy with ease.
4. Plot Analysis:
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of
ingredients: the initial situation, conflict,
complication, climax, suspense, denouement,
and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake
up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
The old man hasn’t caught a fish in eighty-four days. It’s cramping his style.
This situation has been the situation for a while. Eighty-four days, in
fact. And it has to end soon, since winter is coming and the old
man has no 1) food 2) money or 3) clothing for warmth. Sounds
like it’s time for a conflict, quite possibly leading to a climax.
Rising Action
The old man hooks a marlin. The really, really, ridiculously big marlin.
Water splashing, back-breaking work, agonizing pain and a
declaration of fight to the death – this climax certainly rocks the
boat.
Conflict
The fish puts up one hell of a fight over three days, and the old man’s body
may be failing him.
This is not a simple hook, line, and sinker fishing endeavor. And no,
we have no intentions of stopping these awful puns. As you
might expect shortly after the conflict, things get complicated.
The fish turns out to be about a gazillion pounds and the old
man gets a cramp in his hand. Not to mention all the talking to
himself andpsychological complexity of his feelings for the fish,
a.k.a. his brother, enemy, and dear friend.
Climax
The old man harpoons the marlin to death.
We’ve been building towards this very moment for about, oh, 80
pages now. We waited for it, waited for it, waited for it…and
now it’s here. That makes it a climax, as far as we’re
concerned.
Falling Action:
Jaws! Rather, the sharks attack.
But all is not done. There’s that pesky suspense stage, which in this
case takes the form of several vicious sharks followed by a
pack of even more vicious sharks. Will the sharks eat the fish?
Will the old man kill the sharks? Is he going to collapse from
exhaustion?
Denouement
The old man resigns to the fact that his fish is eaten and he is
beaten…supposedly.
The old man accepts this fact rather calmly. You know, after trying to
club a pack of man-eating sharks to death. Because the
suspense and action are over, and you breathe that sigh of
relief that in this case is really more of depressed acceptance,
you know you’re at the denouement. Also, you just had the
suspense stage, and you know this one comes next.
Conclusion
The old man dreams about the lions.
What an great conclusion. Seriously – Hemingway built up this whole
lions thing throughout the text, just weaving it through, subtly,
asking us to notice without beating us about the head with a
sign that says, "LIONS AND IMAGERY THIS WAY," and then
ends with this deceptively simple line. It’s bittersweet, and it
makes you ask lots of conclusion-y questions about whether
the old man was defeated, if he’ll go on to fish another day, and
just what’s the deal with these lions.
Un-answerable questions
1. Why does the old man kill the fish?
2. We claimed (quite vehemently) that The Old Man and the Sea is NOT a
tragedy. Are we right?
3. We love the old man’s discussions of how he "went out too far." Probably
because it’s cryptic and open to interpretation and involves the ever
fascinating emotion of guilt. What does he have to be guilty for? What sort
of "code" did he violate?
4. Santiago claims that a man can be "destroyed but not defeated." How do
we define each of these terms? What’s the difference? Is one more
tolerable than the other?
5. How about the setting? How does the fact that the man is "alone" (open to
debate) out on the sea affect the nature of the story?
Good luck