The Old Man And The Sea Summary By Ernest Hemingway

The old man and the sea is one of the most popular books written by Ernest Hemingway. It is a fictional novella, published in 1952. The setting of this book is Cube and the golf of Mexico. In this article, we will tell you about the summary of The Old Man And The Sea book, so let’s get into it. 

The Old Man And The Sea Summary By Ernest Hemingway

Summary of The Old Man And The Sea

We have added subheadings to the paragraphs to make the summary more understandable. 

Old Man With His Dreams

The story starts from a port in Havana, Cuba’s capital. Where an old man Santiago lives, his wife died, and it’s been eighty-four days he hasn’t caught any fish. This thing is very insulting in his fisherman community. A young boy lives named Manoline helps him and works as a trainee. His parents ask him to find a new master because Santiago is old and can’t catch fish. However, that boy doesn’t go fishing with Santiago but cares about him and helps him in everything. In return, Santiago tells Manoline the stories of his old days.

Way to the Gulf of Mexico 

Every night Santiago dreams that he is on a beach in Africa with lions. The following day Santiago brings Manoline to work, and he helps Santiago drop the boat in the sea. This is the eighty-fifth day, and Santiago thought he’d sail towards the Gulf of Mexico. After reaching The Gulf of Mexico, Santiago dropped his fish hooks in that place where he had been trying to catch fish for the last week. Simply put, he is trying his luck.

A Big Fish 

Finally, in the early afternoon, he got a tuna fish of about 10 pounds. He decided to eat that tuna in his lunch. It was not much time that suddenly there was a jolt in his rope; he felt like a big fish was caught in the fishhook. That fish was so big that Santiago could not pull it, but the fish was dragging his small boat and carrying it forward. As the day progressed, Santiago started to feel something for that fish. Santiago began to love that fish and started getting mercy, but he was determined to kill this fish. The old man cut down all the other fishhooks and focused only on this one. He had determined that he would not let this fish go from his hand.

Killing The Fish

Night falls, and the sun of the second day rises; Merlin fish starts moving and pulls Santiago’s fishhook very hard. The more the fish pulls the hook, the more rope wounds form on Santiago’s hands. He held his hand and cleaned the wounds. Then, suddenly, the fish jumped out of the water. He saw that the fish was too big and he hadn’t seen this many big fish in his life. To handle that fish, he has tightened his grip then he thinks whether I will be able to kill it. Then he thought if his hero Joe Dimaggio had been here, what he would do, and he dares to kill the big fish with his spear. 

Back to Home

After killing the big fish, Santiago ties it to the side of his boat to take it with him. Now the third day, he heads back to Cuba, but on the way, the shark fishes were attracted by the smell of that fish’s blood, and they started attacking his small boat. Those sharks began eating the flesh of that marlin fish. Santiago struck those sharks without thinking and killed some of them. But later on, the whole herd of sharks came, and even after Santiago’s efforts, they ate the entire meat of that big fish.

Regain Lost Honor

Somehow he reached the shore, but it was midnight, so everyone was asleep. Santiago somehow puts his boat and the remaining part of marlin fish on the coast, and he, too, goes to sleep. 

The following day when Manolin came to his hut, Santiago was sleeping, and Manolin was very happy to see him. But he was very sad when he saw the cut wounds on Santiago’s hand. He also brought something for Santiago to drink.

Meanwhile, seeing the skeleton of that fish outside, a crowd of fishermen and tourists gathered there. Some people were thinking of it as a shark. Manolin tells Santiago whatever my parents have told me, but I will stay with you and take fishing training from you, and he leaves from there. Santiago falls back asleep and is lost in his dreams.

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Wrapping up

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