The Old Man and the Sea

The first part of the book describes the impoverished life of the elderly fisherman Santiago, his friendship with the young boy he has tutored in the arts of fishing, and his routines when out at sea.

Santiago is old and lonely with age, and his luck has lately been poor—84 days straight with no sellable catch. The locals now call him “salao,” a Cuban idiom derived from the Spanish “salado” which means bitter, salty, or unlucky. His crew member, the boy Manolin, loves Santiago as an honored teacher. Although his father pulls him from the old man’s unlucky skiff, the boy still visits Santiago, helps him with the boat, and cares for him like a grandfather. Manolin cadges food and supplies, sometimes spending his own money, to help Santiago; he obtains meals that the old man humbly accepts. Effectively, the boy is keeping his teacher alive during the streak of bad luck.

Santiago’s life has an edge of sadness. Though not exactly upbeat, he is bravely determined to continue the struggle for his livelihood. He displays the calm patience of one who has fought many battles and knows that some of them take time and may cost a great deal.

Hemingway’s writing style is pithy, direct, and evocative; it greatly influenced 20th-century authors, especially in America, where his clipped, direct, and often-masculine phrasings influenced many fiction genres, including crime, adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi.

But the power of his prose arises less from its succinctness and more from the story underneath the words. He might, for example, describe a man intensely focused for hours on a single hobby, but the real story is that the man does so to avoid thinking about a trauma he suffered. Without saying it, the words point to that trauma.

According to Hemingway, the less said, the better. He is rumored to have won a bet that he could compose an entire story in a single sentence. His winning entry was, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The Old Man and the Sea contains a number of sentences that could be short stories in their own right: “The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him” (2). This sums up their relationship perfectly; the reader can imagine the boy’s apprenticeship, the man’s patience with the child’s mistakes, and how the two bonded during that process.

The old man is named Santiago; the word “sant,” or “saint,” contained therein gently suggests the protagonist’s kindly nature and spiritual connection to the sea. Yet the story mentions his name only six times. The young boy, Manolin, is addressed by name twice, each time by Santiago. Manolin contains “mano,” or “hand,” implying that the boy is handy and helpful. The story, however, treats their names almost as afterthoughts, as if man and boy are nameless, or that their names are unimportant, and that their experiences are too universal to personalize in that way.

The author lived for many years in Cuba; he knew well the people and their culture, including their fishing industry and their love of baseball. That sport has for decades been a great passion of the Cuban people; many heroes of America’s Major League Baseball have hailed from Cuba. Santiago is a fan of the New York Yankees, the dominant team in mid-century American baseball. Santiago’s favorite player is Joe DiMaggio, one of the team’s biggest stars. DiMaggio was active between 1938 and 1951; Santiago’s interest in the slugger locates the story within that time period.

The old man’s fascination with the Yankees bespeaks his ongoing engagement with the world. Where some elderly people begin to pull back from society, he retains an enduring interest in it, alongside his persistent work as a fisherman.

His eyes retain their vision into old age, unlike most fishermen, who eventually suffer blindness from the sun’s powerful reflection on the ocean. Santiago’s unhampered eyes share qualities with his mind, still clear and far-seeing despite the decades, and his heart, which never gives up.

Santiago dreams of his youthful apprenticeship aboard sailing ships plying the coast of Africa near the islands of his birth, the Canaries. He no longer dreams of his long-dead wife or of the fish he has caught; his reveries reflect the calmly reflective, peaceful character of his thoughts in old age. The dreams serve as a sanctuary that his mind visits nightly, where it basks in the beauty of youthful memories far removed from the poverty and pains of old age. The recurring symbols of his dreams are lions, creatures of grace and power.

The fishing technique employed by Santiago is common type yet well thought-out, and it is one that he takes pride in performing expertly. He hunts deep-sea fish that sometimes swim far below while they hunt their prey. He also can splice on extra line to extend one to 300 fathoms, or 1800 feet—a third of a mile—in case a big fish bites and takes off.

On day 85, a large marlin does just that, and the great battle begins.