shark factory
The shark factory is a processing facility located on the opposite side of the cove from the Terrace, a place where the raw catch of the sea is transformed into marketable commodities. It is a site of industrial butchery, where sharks are hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off, their hides skinned out, and their flesh cut into strips for salting. The factory's presence is felt even before it is seen: when the wind is from the east, a smell comes across the harbour from the shark factory, a faint, unpleasant odour that marks the boundary between the clean ocean and the human industry that consumes it. On the day Santiago sets out, the wind has backed into the north and then dropped off, leaving only the faint edge of the odour, so the Terrace is pleasant and sunny. The factory is a constant, if sometimes invisible, part of the community's economic life, a place where the value of a shark is extracted in a systematic, almost mechanical process. It is also a source of a valuable byproduct: a big drum of shark liver oil is kept in the shack where many fishermen store their gear, available to all who want it. Most fishermen hate the taste, but Santiago drinks a cup of it each day, finding it good against colds and grippes and beneficial for the eyes. The factory thus provides a remedy that sustains the fishermen even as it embodies the ruthless logic of the market.
Economic and Social Context
The shark factory is a key node in the local economy, a place where the fishermen's labor is converted into cash. The successful fishermen of the day bring their marlin to the fish house to wait for the ice truck to carry them to market in Havana, but those who have caught sharks take them to the factory on the other side of the cove. This division of labor reflects a hierarchy of value: marlin are destined for the tables of Havana, while sharks are processed into lower-value goods like salted strips and liver oil. The factory's operation is a reminder that the sea is not just a source of heroic struggle but also of mundane commerce. The old man himself is part of this economy, though he operates at its margins. When he finally lands his great marlin, he calculates its potential worth: "He's over fifteen hundred pounds the way he is," he thinks. "Maybe much more. If he dresses out two-thirds of that at thirty cents a pound?" The factory, with its efficient processing of sharks, represents the industrial scale of this commerce, a scale that Santiago, alone in his skiff, can never match. The proprietor of the Terrace, Martin, who provides Santiago with food and beer, is a figure of local generosity, but the factory is a faceless institution, a place where the catch is reduced to its component parts for sale.
The Factory as a Symbol of Waste and Loss
The shark factory also embodies a kind of waste and loss that contrasts with Santiago's personal code. The factory processes sharks that are caught deliberately, but the sharks that attack Santiago's marlin are scavengers, drawn by the blood of his prize. After the Mako shark attack, Santiago loses his harpoon and rope, and the marlin is mutilated. Later, the shovel-nosed sharks, or galanos, which are scavengers as well as killers, tear away more of the meat. The factory's systematic processing of sharks is a mirror of the sharks' own systematic consumption of the marlin. In the end, the great fish is reduced to a skeleton, a "great long white spine with a huge tail at the end" that is seen by a party of tourists at the Terrace. A woman points to it and asks what it is, and the waiter, meaning to explain what has happened, says "Tiburon"—shark. The tourists, ignorant of the struggle, admire the tail's beauty. The skeleton, once a living creature of immense power and dignity, is now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide, a final, ironic echo of the factory's work: the reduction of a magnificent life to a commodity, then to waste. The factory, in its relentless processing, is a symbol of the forces that ultimately defeat Santiago's individual effort, reducing his triumph to a spectacle for outsiders and a pile of bones.
