Most of the novel consists of this struggle, which lasts over three days. Instead, the marlin keeps swimming and pulls the fishing skiff behind it, Santiago holding on to the line.

It soon becomes evident that the fish is too big and too strong to be hauled in. Just before noon, a line is taken by something big, which Santiago identifies as a marlin. He sails his skiff into the Gulf Stream, further than he has intended to, and sets his lines. He wakes before sunrise and sets out on what is now the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak. He goes to sleep dreaming of lions he once saw on an African beach.

Manolin will not, of course, be accompanying him. He is sure that the salao is nearing its end. Santiago tells the boy that on the next day he is going to try and break his unlucky streak by venturing out further than usual, far into the Gulf Stream, into the Straits of Florida. They are both fans of the legendary player, Joe Di Maggio. The old man has not been eating and Manolin tries to encourage him by cooking for him. Manolin, who has been taught how to fish by the old man is very attached to him and visits him in his run-down shack every night and helps him prepare his fishing gear. Santiago’s apprentice, Manolin, a young boy, has been forbidden by his parents to go out with the old man any more and told to join the boats of more successful fishermen. In that fishing community there is an affliction that can strike at you, called “salao.” It means “unlucky” – the most severe lack of luck. Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. It is therefore a very simple plot that hardly involves the interaction between characters. There are only two characters and for most of the novel only one. Read a summary of The Old Man and the Sea:

Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order.

Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.

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