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To summarise this book as a simple fish story would be an understatement. I love the story that Ernest Hemingway narrated in the book. A lot has been said about Hemingway's ideals of courage, grace under pressure, and all that. But my own feeling is that what he really wanted was to be considered wise. If asked for a single word to describe what this book is all about, I would say “perseverance”. It is a beautiful book with a beautiful story and ‘silently’ inspires you while you are reading it. One quote from the book that really got to me;

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ”

The inclusion of philosophical undertones in the story made me relate to the characters even more especially to the protagonist. If it was the best Hemingway could write, it is most certainly one of the few beautiful stories mankind will ever read and I would like to read more of his works. The Old Man and the Sea is hardly even a novel. Maybe a novella or novelette. Or just a long short story but it has the richful content of a 500-page novel.

The next shark that came was a single shovelnose. He came like a pig to the trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in it.

Who would describe the coming of a predator in such a way? I almost choke myself with laughter! I suspect younger readers would  find it dull, repetitive and corny. Nonetheless, I would most definitely encourage others to read this book. Before diving in Ernest's other work of writing, The Old Man and the Sea would be a good preface.

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Basically, Hemingway's tale of The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of an old, experienced fisherman and his epic struggle to obtain his greatest catch of his life. Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman was on his bad streak of no catch for eighty-four days. So transparently unlucky, that the parents of his young, devoted apprentice and well-wisher, Manolin, have forced the boy to leave the old man in order to fish in a more prosperous boat. But, that didn't stop the kind boy from caring for the old man. He secures food for him, and discusses the latest developments in American baseball, especially the old man’s hero, Joe DiMaggio. Despite continuous bad luck, Santiago remains determined that all bad things soon come to an end and resolves to sail out farther than usual the following day.
On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sailed his skiff far beyond the island’s shallow coastal waters and ventured into the Gulf Stream. He prepares his lines and drops them at fathoms length as described in the book. At noon, Santiago realises a big fish called marlin had taken the bait that he has placed one hundred fathoms deep in the waters. The old man expertly hooks the fish, but he cannot pull it in. Instead, the fish's struggle begins to pull the boat. However, the old man bears the strain of the line with his shoulders, back, and hands as he was unable to to tie the line fast enough and was actually ready to give slack if the marlin escapes. The fish pulls the boat all through for two days and nights. The entire time, Santiago endures constant pain as he didn't let go of the line and the fish continues to swim steadily before it tires and swam with the current. Despite the pain and wounds, Santiago felt empathy and admiration for the marlin its strength and suffering.
The fish finally tires on the third day, and Santiago who was sleep-deprived, aching, and nearly delirious, managed to pull the marlin in close enough to kill it with a harpoon thrust. The marlin was the largest Santiago has ever seen. While Santiago is excited by the price that the marlin will bring at market, he is more concerned that the people who will eat the fish are unworthy of its greatness.

Unfortunately,  the marlin’s blood leaves a trail in the water and attracts sharks. The first to attack is a great mako shark, which Santiago manages to slay with the harpoon. In the struggle, the old man loses the harpoon and lengths of valuable rope, which leaves him vulnerable to other shark attacks.  Despite the lack of weapons, the old man bravely fights off the successive vicious predators as best he can, stabbing at them with makeshift weapons he made. But all the blood and gore attracted even more sharks and by the time night falls, Santiago’s continued fight against the sharks was futile. They had devoured the marlin’s precious meat, leaving only skeleton, head, and tail. Santiago punished himself for going “out too far,” and for sacrificing his great and worthy opponent. He arrived home before daybreak, stumbles back to his shack, and sleeps very deeply.

A crowd of astonished fishermen gathered around the skeletal carcass of the fish the next morning, which was still lashed to the boat. The tourists at a nearby café observed the remains of the giant marlin and mistake it for a shark. His young friend, Manolin, who has been worried sick over the old man’s absence, filled with tears of relief when he finds Santiago safe in his bed. The boy fetched the old man some coffee and the daily papers with the baseball scores, and watched him sleep. When the old man wakes, the two agree to fish as partners once more. The old man returns to sleep and dreams his usual dream of lions at play on the beaches of Africa.

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Most part of the story took part in the old man's boat out in the sea. Cuba, near Havana in the 1940s is the place of the story where it all goes down.
Through the title of  the book itself, one can see that Hemingway gave such importance to the setting or the surrounding where events occurs. In the book, he carefully described the small fishing village and by the use of words like 'dark blue' and 'almost purple' to describe water and the fish jumping through the current, he presented the story in a much realistic  perspective for the readers.
The main setting of the novel, the sea, makes for great storytelling as it depicts the old man's battles and struggles with the nature elements, including the sea itself.

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The most prevalent or central theme in the story is man versus nature. A theme which symbolically opposes mankind to the purportedly defeated natural world. In the story, Santiago encounters many challenges from the nature and the most obvious one to be his battle with a 18-foot giant marlin. Other themes that accompanied the main theme in the tale are determination, perseverance in times of adversity, friendship, strength and skill. On the whole, the importance of determination and strong will that was highlighted by Ernest Hemingway in his tale helped in defining the types of people we are. Humans will be constantly tested and challenged and how we face and endure these hardships, the thought process that takes place in order to take an action in a circumstance helped in engaging the readers to the most relevant and core message of the story.

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The Old Man and the Sea falls under the genre of "literary fiction". Books under this category of genre usually provides readers with deeper understanding of human condition and are enjoyable to read. Hemingway narrates a story about an old man's quest to catch a fish and the obstacles he endures to achieve his goal. Compared to other works in similar genre, Hemingway's succinct and to-the-point narration style brings the story's protagonist, Santiago to life when Santiago's masculinity was depicted as "knows how to suffer like a man without complaint. Although brief, Ernest managed to create impact through his choice of words and not bogged down by details.

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The narration of the story is done through third-person point of view. Third-person can be either limited or omniscient. In Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", the narrator is omniscient as he or she able to tell the readers everything that was going on in the story including the thoughts of both the young boy and the old man. Evidently showing that the narrator is not a character represented in the story but rather a disembodied voice.

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The author of "The Old Man and the Sea" is known as one of the great American 20th century novelist. The Old Man and the Sea is his significant work other than The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls.  In his previous works, the takeaway message seem to be about elements of life. For example, in "A Farewell to Arms" which was written in the period of World War 1, Hemingway circled around depression, death and love. His writings are mostly centered and manifested through his own life experiences. In "The Sun also Rises", the author had included one of his favourite past time adventure; bullfighting in Spain in his story. In the words of Hemingway himself,

“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”

Before being known as writer of short stories, Ernest Hemingway first stepped into the world of writing through journalistic writing. That would explain his minimalistic writing style and his focus on surface elements without explicitly discussing the underlying themes.
"The Old Man and the Sea" considered to be his best work and his way of showing that he wasn't "through" as a writer after he was panned by the critics for his 1950 novel "Across the River and into the Trees". Compared to his previous works, this simple story is narrated based on timeless theme and symbolism. The classic literature would be a valuable insight about life for the readers.

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The Old Man and the Sea is a work of fiction by Ernest Hemingway. It is a short novel that was originally published in 1952. This classic novel is the last major writing by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime and was even adapted into a movie in 1958. The short novel was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for fiction and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.