1. He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them. -Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea

2. The Old Man and the Sea
A novella by Ernest Hemingway written in Cuba in 1951 and published in It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.[1] It is noteworthy in twentieth century fiction and in Hemingway's canon, reaffirming his worldwide literary prominence and significant in his selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

3. Gregorio Fuentes is one possible model for Hemingway's eponymous "Old Man.”
While Hemingway was living in Cuba beginning in 1940 with his third wife Martha Gellhorn, one of his favorite pastimes was to sail and fish in his boat, named the Pilar.
General biographical consensus holds that the model for Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea was, at least in part, the Cuban fisherman Gregorio Fuentes.

4. Fuentes, also known as Goyo to his friends, was born in 1897 on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, migrated to Cuba when he was six years old and met Hemingway there in 1928.
In the 1930s, Hemingway hired him to look after his boat. During Hemingway's Cuban years a strong friendship formed between Hemingway and Fuentes. For almost thirty years, Fuentes served as the captain of the Pilar; this included time during which Hemingway did not live in Cuba.

5. Fuentes, suffering from cancer, died in 2002; he was 104 years old
Fuentes, suffering from cancer, died in 2002; he was 104 years old. Prior to his death, he donated Hemingway's Pilar to the Cuban government.
The Old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life.

6. Symbolism of character
No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things.
The style of the work, the simplicity and the concreteness of its descriptions, provides a rich opportunity for symbolic interpretations. Some insights follow.

7. Santiago as a defeated hero
Santiago, the main character in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, may be seen as a defeated hero. He represents the courage, strength and endurance of the human race. He, like all men, struggled with faith (the fish) and both hated and loved life (the sea). The thing that truly defeated Santiago was his pride.

8. Santiago represents humankind
Hemingway compares him to Jesus Christ on several occasions. Santiago "...picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He...[sat] down five times before he reached his shack" (121) much like Jesus did on the journey to his crucifixion, carrying the cross.
Later Santiago sleeps "...face down ... with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up" (122), the position of Jesus on the cross. All throughout the book the old man wishes for salt, a staple seasoning in the human diet. He is a fisherman, similar to Christ's disciples.

9. The marlin represents religion
the fish has been a symbol of Christianity since its early days, and the sea represents life as it is thought to be where life began, and is a staple in our survival as humans. The marlin swims through the sea as religion weaves through life. Santiago struggles with the fish as humans often do with their faith. Santiago loves the fish as men love their gods, and he hates the fish as men hate their gods. The fish was very beautiful and huge and Santiago felt a connection with it, he considered it his brother. Hemingway says that Santiago is not a religious man, but he seems to have some faith as shown by his offers to say his "Hail Marys" and praises if he catches the marlin.

10. Santiago is ultimately defeated by his pride
He goes too far out to sea and thinks that he can conquer the sharks. Santiago questions sin, and pride is the ultimate sin in Christian discourse. He even apologizes to the fish, as a man would apologize to his god, for his pride. The old man's pride breaks his heart and he spits it out in the night.

11. Santiago is a hero, but he is defeated
He wins over his adversary, whom he considers his brother, but is still not victorious because he does not reach his goal. He wins over his religion (the fish), but life (the sea) makes sure he does not get what he wants by sending the sharks to destroy what he has won.
Santiago did not give up; he ultimately won over his main adversary but did not get the meat of the fish as he had wanted. The ordeal destroyed him, but he did not give into the pain. Although he lives in the end of the book, a part of him may have died.

12. Literary significance and criticism
Just what is the book's message?
The answer assumes a third level on which The Old Man and the Sea must be read—as a sort of allegorical commentary on all his previous work, by means of which it may be established that the religious overtones of The Old Man and the Sea are not peculiar to that book among Hemingway's works, and that Hemingway has finally taken the decisive step in elevating what might be called his philosophy of Manhood to the level of a religion.

13. Symbols and Meanings
The marlin is Santiago's worthy opponent. Struggling against such an opponent brings out the best in an individual—courage, endurance, and love. At the same time, because Santiago comes to see the marlin as an alter-ego—he identifies the marlin as male and imagines the fish is old—the marlin comes to represent Santiago.
In other words, Santiago's struggle with the marlin is in fact a struggle with himself. It is not a struggle of strength but rather of endurance, a refusal to accept defeat. Santiago's struggle with the marlin is in fact a struggle to face and overcome his own weaknesses as much as it is a struggle to subdue the great fish. In the process, by refusing to give in to the fish or the weakness of his mind and body, Santiago transcends those weaknesses.

14. Lions
Both in his bed in the village and in his boat, Santiago dreams of lions on the beaches of Africa, which he saw when he was a boy on a ship that sailed and fished the coast of Africa. The lions symbolize Santiago's lost youth as well as his pride (a group of lions is called a "pride").
Santiago's love for the lions, which are fierce predators, also mirrors his relationship with the marlin, whom he loves but whose death he feels is necessary to his survival. In this way, the lions as also symbolize Santiago's affinity with nature. Now that Santiago is no longer young, and has lost his friends, family, and strength, he sees the lions only in his dreams. Santiago's dreams of the lions at the end of the novella suggest that in triumphing over the marlin, he has undergone his own rejuvenation.

15. The Shovel-Nosed Sharks
Scavengers who eat dead flesh, the shovel-nosed sharks stand in contrast to the marlin. Unlike the marlin, the sharks are not worthy opponents. The shovel-nosed sharks can be seen as symbolizing the destructive forces of nature and of the people of Jerusalem, whose petty jealousies and rivalries led to the crucifixion of Jesus. Some have even argued that the sharks symbolize literary critics, whom Hemingway saw as "feasting" on the creations of true artists without actually creating anything themselves.

16. The Mast
At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, the exhausted Santiago removes his mast from his skiff, and haltingly drags it up the beach to his shack by resting one end of the cross on his shoulder. The position in which Santiago carries the mast exactly mirrors the position in which Jesus Christ was forced to drag his cross on the way to his crucifixion. The mast, then, becomes a symbol for the cross, and cements the parallel that Hemingway sets up between Santiago's ordeal and Christ's.