Resumo de The Old Man And The Sea, 1952

The story starts with an old fisherman called Santiago
in Cuba
who has gone eighty-four days without a catch. The dry patch does not destroy
his spirit though. He has a friend, a boy named Manolin, who helped him during
the first forty days. After forty days, though, Manolin's parents decide the
old man is unlucky and order their son to join another boat. Despite this,
though, the boy helps the old man to bring in his empty boat every day.

Santiago
tells Manolin that tomorrow he will go out far in the Gulf to fish. He leaves
shore early in the morning, before sunrise, going further out into the sea,
past the great well where he has been recently unsuccessful. Santiago sees a man-of-war bird overhead and
notices that the bird has spied something in the water. The old man cleverly
takes the bird?s lead and threw in his lines. He catches a small tuna soon and
then feels a bite on one of his deeper lines.

The first bite is hard, and the stick to which the line is connected drops
sharply. The next tug is more tentative, but the old man was encouraged by a
bite at so deep a depth so far out in the Gulf, as the fish must be very large.
The marlin nibbles around the hook for some time, refusing to take the bait
fully. After many false bites, the marlin finally takes the tuna and pulls out
a great length of line. Santiago
waits a bit for the marlin to swallow the hook and then pulls hard on the line
to bring the marlin up to the surface. The fish is strong, though, and does not
come up. Instead, he swims away, dragging the old man and his skiff along behind.
It was then Santiago
wishes aloud that he had Manolin with him to help.

As the sun goes down, the marlin continues on in the same direction, and Santiago loses sight of
land altogether. Despite hand cramps, Santiago
is determined to take the fish down. When the marlin comes out of the water
quickly and descends into the water again, Santiago is amazed by its size, which is two
feet longer than the skiff. As the sun sets, Santiago thinks back to triumphs of his past
in order to boost his confidence. He realizes that he must sleep a little if he
is to kill the marlin. He devises a way to sleep. Santiago wraps the line around himself and
leans against the bow to anchor himself, leaving his left hand on the rope to
wake him if the marlin lurches.

When the marlin finally leaps out of the water, it is all the old man can do
to hold onto the line, which is cutting his hand badly and dragging him down to
the bottom of the skiff. Santiago
finds his balance, though, and realizes that the marlin has filled the air
sacks on his back and cannot go deep to die. The marlin will circle and then
the endgame will begin.

At sunrise, the marlin begins a large circle. Santiago holds the line strongly, pulling it
in slowly as the marlin goes round. At the third turn, Santiago sees the fish and is amazed by its
size. He readies the harpoon and pulls the line in more. When the marlin is finally
next to the skiff, Santiago
drove his harpoon into the marlin's chest. The fish crashed into the sea,
blinding Santiago
with a shower of sea spray.

Having killed the Marlin, Santiago
lashes its body alongside his skiff. Having secured the marlin to the skiff, Santiago draws the sail
and lets the trade wind push him toward the southwest.

The trail of blood the slain marlin left in its wake, however, attracted sharks.
The old man initially used his harpoon to fight them off, but after losing his
harpoon, Santiago
fastens his knife to the end of the oar and now wields this against the sharks.
He was, however, unable to hold them back and the shark rips at the marlin
underneath the boat. Santiago
lets go of the sheet to swing broadside and reveal the shark underneath. After
some struggle, he kills this shark as well.

Santiago
apologizes to the fish for the mutilation he has suffered. More sharks appear
at sunset andSantiago
only has a club with which to beat them away. Despite his ferocious fight and
his best attempts to beat the sharks off, he was unable to protect the Marlin from
the sharks and all the flesh was soon gone.

Santiago now
concentrates purely on steering homewards and ignored the sharks that came to
gnaw on the marlin's bones. When he arrives at the harbor, everyone was asleep.
Santiago attempts
to carry the mast back to his shack, but he collapsed from exhaustion on the
shore. When he finally arose, he had to sit five times before reaching home.
Arriving at his shack, Santiago
collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.

Manolin arrives at the shack while Santiago
is still asleep. The boy leaves quickly to get some coffee for Santiago, crying on his way to the Terrace.
Manolin sees fishermen gathered around the skiff, measuring the marlin at
eighteen feet long.

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