Old Man and the Sea 12

The Old Man and the Sea is a fairly simple story with little action. There is a small amount of suspense throughout the story. The rising action of the story consists of an old man who has gone eighty four days without catching a fish, and goes three more days while at sea. The old man, Santiago, has gone eighty seven days without a catch before. He is basically in a rut. He went eighty seven days without a fish; then he had good fishing for three weeks; then he went another eighty seven days without fish. When the old man goes out to sea he hooks a giant fish. This leads to the climax. The climax was just when the huge marlin circled the old man. Santiago began trying to reel him in. At this point he is fighting strong hunger and really an extreme deprivation and exhaustion along with the largest fish he has ever seen. He puts forth a great effort and he defeats the fish. Now he is headed home which is the falling action. The old man has worked hard to catch the fish, and it is taken away from him not long after he killed it. The marlin is devoured by sharks that symbolize the sort of destructive, ferocious animosity of nature. They seem to show up because Santiago killed the fish. It is nature’s way of getting back at him. The sharks work as nature’s hit men, and they make the man go home with nothing but a fish skeleton. But this skeleton could change some things for the old man. With it he regains the respect and admiration of the other fishermen. I think this story would almost keep repeating itself after this except with a few things changed. I think that Santiago and Manolin would go fishing everyday even if they do not catch any fish. They would probably catch fish for the first three weeks just like before. After the three weeks I think that Santiago would pass away having lived a full life.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.