THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

The old man in question is a poverty-stricken fisherman, sailing out of

Havana. He has gone 84 days without catching anything. The boy who
sails with him has been ordered to sail with someone else by his father,
but there is obviously a very deep, strong bond between the two; the boy
making sure the old man is fed and cared for.

The fisherman sets out on day 85, wanting nothing more than to catch
his fish. This is a simple man who asks for nothing much from the
world. The evening before his trip, he sat in his almost derelict shed
reading baseball reports from an old newspaper. For him, this is enough.
This and catching a fish.

He sails out into a sea which has supported him throughout his life. This
is a primitive relationship; a fisherman and the sea; man and nature.
What follows is a battle which tests the old man's ability to endure to the
limit. He hooks a marlin; the biggest he has ever seen; longer than his
boat. What follows is a long tussle between man and fish; a tussle in
which the man's love and respect for the giant fish and its struggle are
evident. After a monumental struggle, the fisherman kills the fish and
lashes it to the side of his boat.

Sailing back to Havana, sharks attack and, bite by bite, the marlin is
eaten. The old man is defeated at last; not so much at seeing the sharks
destroy the money he would have earned, as by the ignoble end to such a
noble fish.

The novel ends with the old man back in his shack, sleeping face down
on his old bed. One senses that this toughest of men has finally been
defeated and that he will never again be able to endure what he went
through with the marlin.