Plot in 'The Old Man and the Sea'

                           Introduction

                     "The Old Man and the Sea" was written by Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway has been an international literary celebrity for more than a quarter of  a century whenever people needs books and in a good many places where people did not read of all the very name of Hemingway was a legend. It was a name associated with war and courage with love and violence with beauty and death. Hemingway was aware of the danger of celebrity the fact that success all too often destroyer the very talent statement is a capsule definition of what he and other writers in United States and abroad were trying to achieve during the First World War period.
                     "The Old Man and the Sea" appeared in 1952, and this novel was written by Ernest Hemingway. In a sense,' The Old Man and the Sea' is capsulated Hemingway that is in its poetic brevity. It is the stilled essence of the writer's most profound belief's concerning human existence. The main characters of this novel are Santiago, Manolin and the tourists.
                      Like all great works of art 'The Old Man and the Sea' is a mirror wherein every man perceives a personal likeness. Such viewpoints, then, differ only in emphasis and reflect generally similar conclusions- that Santiago represents a noble and tragic individualism revealing what man can do in an indifferent universe which defeats him, and the love he can feel for such a universe and his humility before it. Since 1937, Hemingway has been increasingly concerned with the relationship between individualism and interdependence, and The Old Man and the Sea is the culminating expression of this concern in its reflection of Hemingway's mature view of the tragic irony of man's fate: that no abstraction can bring man an awareness and understanding of the solidarity and interdependence without which life is impossible; he must learn it, as it has always been truly learned, through the agony of active and isolated individualism in a universe which dooms such individualism.
                     Santiago knew that the fish was too big to bring into the boat. Therefore, he lashed it securely to the side and prepared to return to the harbor. The skiff sailed well, in spite of the attached weight. Towards the end of his battle, when he had been feeling so badly, it had all seemed like a dream. Now by looking at the fish and of his cut hands and by the feel of his back, he knew it had truly happened. As he sailed, the first shark struck an hour later attracted by the spilled blood of the fish, feeling helpless; Santiago prepared his harpoon to battle the attacker. As the shark tore int to dead fish ,the old man pierced the attacker`s brain with the harpoon.The shark was killed but not before from the great fish. Santiago felt as though he himself had been hit.
                     It had, he thought, been too good to last he wished that he were at home and never hooked the fish, but he comforted "Man is not made for defeat". His own thought and baseball were all he had left. He knew now that this task was hopeless. When he reached the inner currents , there would be other sharks, however, he decided, it was a sin to be without hope, though he did not really understand a sin in killing the fish. After two hours, he saw two more sharks, he prepared for the coming battle by taking up aura to which he had lashed his knife. The old man killed both great fish, everything now felt wrong, and he wished that it had been a dream. "I should not have gone out so far, fish" he observed.
                    After that two more sharks appeared to attack the fish. They were successful in tearing at its flesh. Now he did not want to look at the great fish for he knew that half of it had been destroyed. He expressed his feelings aloud to the fish. "Fish that you were. I am sorry that I went too far. I ruined us both." By midnight sharks appeared in a pack and left only when nothing remained of the great fish.
                     Santiago knew then that he was truly beaten. He thought. "When you are beaten. I never knew how easy it was". Nothing had really beaten him he concludes; he had simply gone out too far.
                     Thus, Santiago is all men who confront the representative man through the parallels drawn between himself and Christ like Christ; he has both conviction and humanity. Also like Christ, he suffers alone for his faith. The faith of Santiago is, of course, far from orthodox religious faith. It includes his pride in his vocation and his endure like Christ Santiago suffers, he too has torn hands and a back which knows pain. Yet nether is defeated. Both are, in a sense, beaten, Christ is crucified, and Santiago loses his great marlin. But even as Christ experienced the resurrection, so we are confident Santiago will rise once more to meet the future, for the boy will join him again and bring Santiago. While being representative man in grappling with life's mysteries alone and enduring alone in exceptional man. His heart may of creation as his sympathy for but he is profoundly and defiantly " a strange old man".
                     'The Old Man and the Sea', was crucial for the writer in his career. Magnificently what had failed in the last work succeeded splendidly in the next? Hemingway has never written more universally or meaningfully of himself than in the most externalized of all his story like Santiago determining to justify his reputation as a skilled fisherman. "The Old Man and the Sea" ,is from one angle, an account of Hemingway's personal struggle, grim resolute and eternal, to write to his best with his seriousness, his precision and his perfectionism.
                     Thus ,in his allegory, Hemingway  has displayed for: all to see the glory that is man, proud and courageous, resolute and defiant. It shapes and fashion man's approach to the universe and dictates his stance in the world. Thus, "Santiago sees it as aspect of the human tragedy".
                   The creatures of the world are like man. They inhabit the same universe and they must engage in the same struggle. The small, tired warbler that visits the skiff and the magnificent marlin that struggle so gloriously really share the same struggle in Santiago's also. All that they can do is to 'fulfill his appointed task, born a fisherman, his prey. If he does it well, he will prove what a man is'.

                                Conclusion

                      In a nutshell, there is no egoism or arrogance in Santiago's confidence he has in his artistry. But his chief response is one of humble love and respect for his ocean brothers. The novel is thus a moving expression of that tragic kinship which unites all creation.