dolphin

The dolphin, also called dorado, is a fish of brilliant gold and purple that the old man encounters during his epic struggle with the marlin. It serves as both a practical source of nourishment and a striking symbol of the ocean's splendor and savagery. When the old man first spots a school of dolphin, he recognizes them as "big dolphin" and watches them drive flying fish to the surface, their presence signaling both opportunity and the relentless predation that governs life beneath the waves.

Appearance and Behavior

The dolphin is described as "true gold in the last of the sun," with burnished golden sides and purple spots that appear when it feeds. The old man notes that the dolphin looks green from a distance because it is "really golden," and that when hungry, purple stripes show on its sides "as on a marlin." The fish is acrobatic, jumping repeatedly in fear when hooked, and its long flat body pounds the bottom of the skiff until it is clubbed still. The old man observes that the dolphin's flesh is "hardly sweet at all" compared to other fish, and that all its strength remains in the meat.

The Dolphin as Sustenance

After catching the dolphin near sunset, the old man guts it and finds two flying fish inside its maw, which he saves to eat later. He eats half of one dolphin fillet and one flying fish under the stars, though he finds the raw dolphin "miserable" compared to its cooked excellence. Later, when his face is crushed against the cut dolphin flesh during the marlin's sudden jumps, he fears nausea and vomit that would cost him strength. He washes the crushed flesh off his face with seawater and resolves not to eat more dolphin, keeping it "for an emergency until it goes bad." The dolphin thus becomes both a vital food source and a reminder of the body's limits.

The Dolphin's Narrative Role

The dolphin episode occurs at a critical juncture in the old man's journey, after he has hooked the marlin but before the shark attacks begin. It provides a moment of relative calm and practical action—re-baiting lines, gutting fish, preparing food—that contrasts with the prolonged tension of the marlin fight. The dolphin's capture also demonstrates the old man's skill and resourcefulness, as he works his way back to the stern while holding the big line with one hand and pulling in the dolphin with the other. The fish's "acrobatics of its fear" mirror the old man's own desperate struggle, while its eventual consumption underscores the theme of killing one's brothers to survive.

The Dolphin as a Symbol of the Sea's Economy

The dolphin is part of a larger web of predation and commerce that defines the old man's world. Earlier, the successful fishermen have butchered marlin and carried them to the fish house for market, while sharks are taken to the shark factory for their livers, fins, and hides. The dolphin, too, is caught for food, its flesh eaten raw to sustain the old man through his ordeal. Yet the old man also reflects on the dolphin's beauty and dignity, noting that "there is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behaviour and his great dignity." This tension between killing and reverence, between necessity and love, lies at the heart of the old man's relationship with the sea and all its creatures.

The Dolphin's Fate and Aftermath

After the old man returns to harbor, the marlin's skeleton is measured at eighteen feet from nose to tail, and the dolphin is long since consumed. The skeleton itself becomes "just garbage waiting to go out with the tide," seen by a tourist who mistakes it for a shark's tail. The dolphin, like the marlin, has been reduced to a memory, its flesh eaten, its beauty vanished. Yet the old man's dream of the lions on the beach endures, suggesting that the cycle of life and death, of killing and being killed, is part of a larger pattern that transcends individual loss.