The Old Man and the SeaPart 3 – Battles at sea
Wednesday & Thursday September 13th & 14th 1950
The Marlin
Glorious, dignified, noble
A worthy opponent
Memories of the pair of marlin
Santiago’s wounds
The draw north-east
Cutting the other lines
The Nobility of Endurance
Marlin
DiMaggio
Nobility
Santiago
The Second Dawn
Shallower depth
The tired warbler & the hawks
Left hand cramp – betrayal
The first jump
Bartering prayers
Memory of arm wrestling – el Campeon
Catching the dolphin / flying fish
More wounds
The THIRD Dawn
The struggle builds to a climax
3 Smaller circles
Pass under the boat
“Come on and kill me. I do not
care who kills who”
The harpoon
Lashing the ‘elixir’ to the boat
A sin?
Material gain
Pride
What he was born to do – his
place in the natural order
The first attack
Within an hour
The Mako – fast and fearless
40 lb of the marlin is taken
Sacrifice of harpoon & rope
Knife lashed to an oar
He knows more will come
Communion
Santiago eats some of the marlin
Physical & spiritual nutrition
The second attack
The sin of hopelessness
2 shovel nosed sharks
Scavengers
‘ay’ – ‘feeling the nail go through his
hands and into the wood’
¼ of the marlin taken
“I shouldn’t have gone out so far, fish”
The 3rd & 4th attack
Sacrifice of the knife
Clubbing despite futility
He knows from his pain that he
is not dead
10pm – the glow of Havana
The final attack
Midnight
The sacrifice of the club and tiller
The copper tasting wound
The defiant spit
The long journey home
The marlin is all but gone
Was he beaten?
Return to Land
The mast and the burden of the cross
The 5 falls
Sleep in the position of the crucified
Christ
Redemption‘To live a life of great fervour and then
to accept destruction with dignity,
passing on whatever one can to a
successor.’
The skeleton is still a vehicle for the
intrinsic values that gives Santiago’s
life meaning.
Will Santiago die & does it matter?
Sharing the Elixir
Manolin – the marlin’s spear
Pedrico – the head
The villagers & tourists – the
spectacle of the skeleton