For 84 days Santiago does not catch a single fish but he does not feel discouraged. He goes far out into the sea and hooks a giant marlin. A desperate struggle ensues in which Santiago manages to kill the fish and tie it to his boat, only to find that on the way home he has to fight a more desperate struggle with some dangerous giant sharks which eat up the marlin, leaving only a skeleton. The old man brings it home and goes to bed to dream, almost dead with exhaustion.

Here in Santiago we see again the spirit of the noble—if tragic—Hemingway type of individualism, contending with a force he knows it is futile to battle with. He keeps on fighting because he believes that “a man is not made for defeat…A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” However, the old man eventually comes to the realization that in going far out alone, “beyond all the people in the world,” he has met his doom, and he feels good to be one of the human and the natural world. That he begins to experience a feeling of brotherhood and love not only for his fellowmen but for his fellow creatures in nature is a convincing proof that Hemingway's vision of the world has undergone a profound change.