Post #3 - The Old Man and The Sea

I have finished my first book which was 140 pages, so I read a mere 120 pages since my last post.

A summary of what I read, which was pretty much the entire book, is as follows. The old man goes out after a long streak of bad luck. He eventually hooks an extremely large fish. The fish then takes him very far out and he must endure two days of holding the line, with no company but himself and the birds and fish. After a struggle he then catches the massive fish which turns out to be bigger then his boat. As he returns sharks begin to arrive. He initially fights them off with his harpoon until it is lost, then his knife attached to a oar until it is broken, and then clubs until he is defeated. When he finally returns home only the skeleton of the great fish remains and he goes to sleep.

Throughout the story the old man has a great respect for all of the creatures of the ocean (except some of the sharks) and the sea itself. He sees the fish as a more worthy and honorable being. As he returns after catching the great fish he talks to it until it is destroyed by the sharks. This shows a theme of the nobility of nature and the inferiority of humans.