The Old Man and the Sea: Summary of the Final Days

On about the fourth day, Santiago is woken up early in the morning by the marlin’s tugging on the line. He realizes he is weak again so he must catch some more flying fish or dolphins for strength. As the marlin is circling the boat now, Santiago pulls hard on the line to keep the pressure on and pull the marlin in. Santiago is to the point in the story now where he does not care who kills who. Finally when the marlin gets close to the skiff, he jumps out of the water and Santiago plunges a harpoon into its side. The water is stained red with its blood. By now the marlin is greatly weakened so Santiago fastens it to the side of the boat. He is very elated at this point because of the amount of money he will make from the meat of the fish. However, he knows that the blood will attract sharks from miles away. About an hour later, sure enough a mako shark appears in the water, and he rips roughly forty pounds of meat from the marlin. Santiago kills it, but he is greatly disheartened. He cheers himself up by thinking of the great DiMaggio. About two hours later, some more shovel-nosed sharks appear and do the same thing. More sharks keep appearing and destroying the marlin. Santiago is now very apologetic toward the marlin for ruining both of their lives. Finally, after midnight, there is no more meat on the marlin from the relentless sharks. Once he is back at land, there is no more than a skeleton of the great fish, and Santiago has roughly no emotion left. He starts to carry the gear back to his shack, and then he goes to sleep. Early in the morning when Santiago wakes up, Manolin sees him and breaks down into tears. He promises that he will never let him fish alone again, and the book ends with Santiago falling back asleep and dreaming of the lions, or he possibly dies, but nobody is sure.