Santiago and the sharks

Santiago and the sharks is the central conflict of the second half of The Old Man and the Sea, in which the old fisherman, after killing a giant marlin, must defend its carcass from successive shark attacks. The struggle transforms his triumph into a test of endurance, forcing him to confront the limits of his strength and the nature of defeat, and it produces the novel's most famous statement of resilience: "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

The First Attack: The Mako Shark

The first shark to arrive was a Mako shark, a creature built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea, with a back as blue as a swordfish's and a silver belly. Everything about him was beautiful except his jaws, which held eight rows of teeth slanted inward, shaped like a man's fingers crisped like claws and nearly as long as the old man's fingers, with razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides. The old man knew this was a shark that had no fear at all and would do exactly what he wished. He prepared his harpoon, though the rope was short because he had cut away so much to lash the marlin to the skiff. His head was clear and full of resolution, but he had little hope. "It was too good to last," he thought. The shark closed fast astern, and when he hit the fish the old man saw his mouth open, his strange eyes, and heard the clicking chop of the teeth as he drove forward into the meat just above the tail. The old man rammed the harpoon down onto the shark's head at the spot where the line between his eyes intersected with the line running straight back from his nose—the location of the brain. He hit it with his blood-mushed hands, driving a good harpoon with all his strength, without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy. The shark swung over, wrapping himself in two loops of the rope, and though the old man knew he was dead, the shark would not accept it. On his back, with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking, he plowed over the water like a speedboat until the rope came taut, shivered, and snapped. The shark lay quietly for a little while on the surface, then went down very slowly. The old man estimated the shark had taken about forty pounds of the marlin, and he had lost his harpoon and all the rope. He knew the fish would bleed again and that there would be others. He did not like to look at the mutilated fish anymore, for when the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit. Yet he told himself, "But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated." He was sorry he had killed the fish, for now the bad time was coming and he did not even have the harpoon. He thought the Mako was cruel and able and strong and intelligent, but that he himself had been more intelligent—or perhaps only better armed.

The Galanos Attacks

Two hours later, the old man saw the first of two shovel-nosed sharks, which he called galanos. He identified them by their brown, triangular fins and the sweeping movements of their tails. They were hateful sharks, bad-smelling scavengers as well as killers, the kind that would cut the legs and flippers off sleeping turtles and would hit a man in the water if they were hungry, even without the smell of fish blood. The old man made the sheet fast, jammed the tiller, and took up an oar with a knife lashed to it. He watched them come. One turned and went out of sight under the skiff, and the old man could feel the skiff shake as he jerked and pulled on the fish. The other came in fast with his half-circle of jaws wide to hit the fish where it had already been bitten. The old man drove the knife on the oar into the juncture where the brain joined the spinal cord, withdrew it, and drove it in again into the shark's yellow cat-like eyes. The shark let go and slid down, swallowing what he had taken as he died. The skiff was still shaking from the destruction the other shark was doing to the fish. The old man let go the sheet so the skiff would swing broadside and bring the shark out from under. When he saw him, he leaned over the side and punched at him, hitting only meat and barely getting the knife in. The shark came up fast with his head out, and the old man hit him squarely in the center of his flat-topped head. He withdrew the blade and punched the shark exactly in the same spot again, then stabbed him in his left eye. The shark still hung there. The old man drove the blade between the vertebrae and the brain, felt the cartilage sever, reversed the oar, and put the blade between the shark's jaws to open them. As the shark slid loose, he said, "Go on, galano. Slide down a mile deep. Go see your friend, or maybe it's your mother." He wiped the blade and laid down the oar, then found the sheet and brought the skiff onto her course. He estimated they had taken a quarter of the fish, and of the best meat. "I wish it were a dream and that I had never hooked him," he said aloud. "I'm sorry about it, fish. It makes everything wrong." He told himself he should not have gone out so far, neither for the fish nor for himself.

The Single Shovel-Nose and the Broken Knife

The next shark that came was a single shovel-nose. He came like a pig to the trough, if a pig had a mouth so wide you could put your head in it. The old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar down into his brain. But the shark jerked backward as he rolled, and the knife blade snapped. The old man settled himself to steer. He did not even watch the big shark sinking slowly in the water, showing first life-size, then small, then tiny—a sight that had always fascinated him. He now had only the gaff, the two oars, the tiller, and a short club. "Now they have beaten me," he thought. "I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller." He put his hands in the water again to soak them. It was getting late in the afternoon, and he saw nothing but the sea and the sky. He hoped he would see land soon.

The Second Galanos Attack and the Club

Just before sunset, the old man saw two brown fins coming along the wide trail the fish must make in the water. They were headed straight for the skiff, swimming side by side. He jammed the tiller, made the sheet fast, and reached under the stern for the club—an oar handle from a broken oar sawed off to about two and a half feet in length. He could only use it effectively with one hand. He let the first shark get a good hold and hit him on the point of the nose or straight across the top of the head. He raised the club high and brought it down heavy and slamming onto the top of the shark's broad head, feeling the rubbery solidity and the rigidity of bone. He struck the shark once more hard across the point of the nose as he slid down from the fish. The other shark came in again with his jaws wide, and the old man could see pieces of the meat spilling white from the corner of his jaws. He swung at him and hit only the head, then swung the club down on him again as he slipped away to swallow, hitting only the heavy solid rubberiness. The shark came in a rush, and the old man hit him as he shut his jaws, hitting solidly from as high up as he could raise the club. This time he felt the bone at the base of the brain and hit him again in the same place while the shark tore the meat loose sluggishly and slid down. Neither shark showed again. The old man knew he could not expect to kill them, though he could have in his time. He had hurt them both badly. He did not want to look at the fish, knowing that half of him had been destroyed.

The Midnight Pack Attack and the Final Defeat

By midnight, the sharks came in a pack, and the old man knew the fight was useless. He could only see the lines in the water that their fins made and their phosphorescence as they threw themselves on the fish. He clubbed at heads and heard the jaws chop and the shaking of the skiff as they took hold below. He clubbed desperately at what he could only feel and hear, and then something seized the club and it was gone. He jerked the tiller free from the rudder and beat and chopped with it, holding it in both hands and driving it down again and again. But they were up to the bow now, driving in one after the other and together, tearing off pieces of meat that showed glowing below the sea as they turned to come once more. One came finally against the head itself, and the old man knew it was over. He swung the tiller across the shark's head where the jaws were caught in the heaviness of the fish's head, which would not tear. He swung it once, twice, and again. He heard the tiller break and lunged at the shark with the splintered butt, felt it go in, and drove it in again. The shark let go and rolled away. That was the last shark of the pack. There was nothing more for them to eat. The old man could hardly breathe now and felt a strange, coppery, sweet taste in his mouth. He spat into the ocean and said, "Eat that, galanos. And make a dream you've killed a man." He knew he was beaten now finally and without remedy. He went back to the stern, found the jagged end of the tiller would fit in the slot of the rudder well enough for him to steer, settled the sack around his shoulders, and put the skiff on her course. He sailed lightly now, with no thoughts or feelings of any kind, past everything. In the night, sharks hit the carcass as someone might pick up crumbs from the table, but the old man paid no attention to them. He only noticed how lightly and how well the skiff sailed now there was no great weight beside her. When he finally reached the little harbour and saw the great tail of the fish standing up behind the skiff's stern, the white naked line of its backbone, and the dark mass of the head with the projecting bill and all the nakedness between, he knew what had happened. He told the boy, "They beat me, Manolin. They truly beat me." But he also said, "I went out too far." The marlin's skeleton, eighteen feet from nose to tail, was measured by a fisherman. A party of tourists at the Terrace mistook it for a shark's tail. The old man, asleep in his shack, was dreaming about the lions.