"A man can be destroyed but not defeated"

This is my favourite quote from the book 'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway. I had studied this as part of my syllabus in undergraduate level. But it turned out to became one of my favourite book. To tell you the plot in brief it is the story of an epic struggle between an old, seasoned fisherman and the greatest catch of his life. For eighty-four days, Santiago an aged Cuban fisherman, has set out to sea and returned empty-handed. So conspicuously unlucky is he that the parents of his young devoted apprentice and friend, Manolin, have forced the boy to leave the old man in order to fish in a more prosperous boat. Nevertheless, the boy continues to care for the old man upon his return each night. He helps the old, secures food for him, and discusses the latest developments in American baseball, especially the trials of the old man’s hero, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago is confident that his unproductive streak will soon come to an end, and he resolves to sail out farther than usual the following day.
On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago does as promised, sailing his skiff far beyond the island’s shallow coastal waters and venturing into the Gulf Stream. He prepares his lines and drops them. At noon, a big fish, which he knows is a marlin, takes the bait that Santiago 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 begins to pull the boat.

Unable to tie the line fast to the boat for fear the fish would snap a taut line, the old man bears the strain of the line with his shoulders, back, and hands, ready to give slack should the marlin make a run. The fish pulls the boat all through the day, through the night, through another day, and through another night. It swims steadily northwest until at last it tires and swims east with the current. The entire time, Santiago endures constant pain from the fishing line. Whenever the fish lunges, leaps, or makes a dash for freedom, the cord cuts him badly. Although wounded and weary, the old man feels a deep empathy and admiration for the marlin, his brother in suffering, strength, and resolve.

On the third day the fish tires, and Santiago, sleep-deprived, aching, and nearly delirious, manages to pull the marlin in close enough to kill it with a harpoon thrust. Dead beside the skiff, the marlin is the largest Santiago has ever seen. He lashes it to his boat, raises the small mast, and sets sail for home. 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.

As Santiago sails on with the fish, 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. The old man fights off the successive vicious predators as best he can, stabbing at them with a crude spear he makes by lashing a knife to an oar, and even clubbing them with the boat’s tiller. Although he kills several sharks, more and more appear, and by the time night falls, Santiago’s continued fight against the scavengers is useless. They devour the marlin’s precious meat, leaving only skeleton, head, and tail. Santiago chastises himself for going “out too far,” and for sacrificing his great and worthy opponent. He arrives home before daybreak, stumbles back to his shack, and sleeps very deeply.

The next morning, a crowd of amazed fishermen gathers around the skeletal carcass of the fish, which is still lashed to the boat. Knowing nothing of the old man’s struggle, tourists at a nearby café observe the remains of the giant marlin and mistake it for a shark. Manolin, who has been worried sick over the old man’s absence, is moved to tears when he finds Santiago safe in his bed. The boy fetches the old man some coffee and the daily papers with the baseball scores, and watches 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.

And now the theme that has fascinated me all these years...

Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is the deceivingly simple story of an old Cuban fisherman who undergoes the most difficult struggle of his life. Despite being a relatively short work, the novel is filled not only with drama but with the parable of one man's perseverance through the hardest of times. In the title character, Santiago, Hemingway depicts one of the most distinguished examples in American Literature of an individual looking deep within to summon the courage necessary to get through the triumphs and tragedies that life -- represented by the sea -- presents. Alone on the sea, Santiago continuously struggles to find hope in several seemingly hopeless situations. The old man exemplifies Hemingway's ideal of exhibiting "grace under pressure," as he refuses to submit to the overwhelming obstacles presented by the sea. Santiago's attitude seems to be that although he is faced with tragedy -- as everyone is sooner or later in life -- he will not cease struggling. Relying on memories of his youth, news of the Great DiMaggio's recovery from injury, and thoughts of the boy, Santiago finds the strength to physically and emotionally carry on throughout the story. After hooking the great marlin Santiago realizes he is unable to quickly kill the fish, and it proceeds to tow him farther out to sea. Yet, throughout the test of endurance between man and fish the old man begins to recognize a bond between he and the marlin, repeatedly referring to it as his brother; he elaborates, "Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us" (50). The old man and the fish are both mere inhabitants among the diverse tropical life residing in the Gulf Stream, bonded by the fact that they are at the mercy of the sea. The fish, therefore, transforms from merely being Santiago's prey to serving as a metaphor reflecting the old man's emotional and physical state. When the sharks mutilate the dead marlin hanging off the side of the skiff as Santiago struggles to sail home, the old man fights them off as if they were attacking him. Only when the marlin's carcass has been entirely eaten away does Santiago give up, knowing he "was beaten now finally and without remedy" (119). Although the old man seemingly fails once the sharks steal his prize fish, they cannot take away the fact that Santiago -- the primary target for the jest and pity of other fishermen -- has done the unthinkable by staying with and catching a fish "bigger than he had ever heard of" (63). According to the "Hemingway Code," based on principles of courage and endurance, the old man has actually triumphed in spite of his loss. In spite of not successfully bringing the fish back, Santiago fights with dignity -- first to land the marlin, then to protect his fish from the sharks -- and in doing so asserts his humanity. Santiago endures and successfully survives his supreme ordeal, fighting the timeless battle of man vs. fate, with honor by remaining resilient in the face of triumph and tragedy.