• The Old Man And the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

• Introduction
• Short Summary
• Detailed Summary
• The Old Man And the Sea-Part-I
• The Old Man And the Sea-Part-II
• The Old Man And the Sea-Part-III
• The Old Man And the Sea- Part-IV
• The Old Man And the Sea- Part-V
• The Old Man And the Sea- Part-VI
• Characters: "The Old Man And the Sea"
• Character of Santiago
• Character Manolin
• Themes & Topics
• University Questions & Answers
• Importance of DiMaggio
• Santiago's Fight with Marlin
• Struggle with the Sharks
• Santiago's Handmatch with Negro
• Character of the sea as a symbol
• The novel as a tragedy
• Theme of the novel
• Top 10 Quotes: The Old Man And the Sea
• Best Quotes from The Old Man And the Sea

The Old Man And the Sea - Fight with the Marlin

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On the eighty fifth day, Santiago determined to go "far out" into the sea. He dropped his lines and after a struggle of a few hours, a big marlin swallowed the bait. Santiago loosened the line so that the bait may reach the stomach of the fish. But to his bad luck, the bait stuck to the jaws of the fish. Santiago tried to pull the line but failed because the fish was too heavy for him. He realized that he was up against some big fish. Now, the fish began to tow the boat. Santiago was not afraid. He decided to stick to the fish and challenges:

"Fish, I'll stay with you until I am dead."

In this struggle, Santiago is bent on proving :

"what a man can do and what a man endures."

The fish tows the boat for 48 hours and gets tired. In these 48 hours, Santiago faces hunger, thirst, wounds and is tired unlike the fish he does not give in. The fish comes on the surface of water and begins to circle the boat. Santiago is in deep pain but "pain does not matter to a man." On each circle the old man kept on rolling the wire onto his body. It continued for two hours. At last, the fish was close enough and Santiago killed it with his spear.