Summary When Santiago reaches shore, everyone is in bed, so no one is there to help him. He pulls the skiff up onto the beach as best he can, makes the boat fast to a rock, and then carries the furled mast on his shoulder toward his shack. Looking back, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 4 – Back AshoreSummary and Analysis Part 3 – Battles at Sea: The Marlin and the Sharks
Summary A sudden dip in one of the green sticks heralds the start of the novella’s central battle. Holding the line gently between thumb and forefinger, Santiago somehow knows that a hundred fathoms down a great marlin is eating the sardines covering the hook that projects from the head of […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 3 – Battles at Sea: The Marlin and the SharksSummary and Analysis Part 2 – The Journey Out
Summary Alone in his boat, in the dark of early morning, Santiago rows out to sea. He hears the other fishermen leaving in their boats but cannot see them in the dark. He passes the phosphorescence of some Gulf weed and one of the deep wells where many fish and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 2 – The Journey OutSummary and Analysis Part 1 – Preparations
Summary For 84 days, the old fisherman Santiago has caught nothing, returning empty-handed in his skiff to the small Cuban fishing village where he lives. After 40 days without a catch, Manolin’s father has insisted that Manolin, the young man Santiago taught to fish from the age of five, fish […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Part 1 – PreparationsCharacter List
Santiago The novella’s central character. A dedicated fisherman who taught Manolin everything he knows about fishing, Santiago is now old and poor and has gone 84 days without a catch. Manolin A young man from the fishing village who has fished with Santiago since the age of five and now […]
Read more Character ListAbout The Old Man and the Sea
In April of 1936, Hemingway published an essay in Esquire magazine entitled “On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter,” which contained a paragraph about an old man who went fishing alone in a skiff far out at sea, landed a huge marlin, and then lost much of it to […]
Read more About The Old Man and the SeaBook Summary
For 84 days, the old fisherman Santiago has caught nothing. Alone, impoverished, and facing his own mortality, Santiago is now considered unlucky. So Manolin (Santiago’s fishing partner until recently and the young man Santiago has taught since the age of five) has been constrained by his parents to fish in […]
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