The Old Man and the Sea - Day 4

The old man wakes up from dreams of lions on the beach, and decides to butcher the dolphin. He finds two flying fish in the belly of the dolphin. He cuts the dolphin up and eats one filet of dolphin meat along with one of the flying fish. Suddenly, the marlin goes crazy. It jerks the line back and forth throwing the old man around. He is thrown around into the boat and then face down into the dolphin meat. The line is going out quickly, so the old man grips onto it and stops it, badly cutting his left hand again. He thinks of the boy and how helpful he would be if he were with him. He could wet the coils of the line which would lessen the friction and stop it from cutting the old man's hands as bad as it is. The old man's hands are now badly cut and his face covered in raw dolphin meat. Afraid that the smell of the dolphin meat so close to his face will make him nauseous, the old man wipes the chunks off of his face as well as he can. He is losing strength, so he decides to eat another one of his flying fish in hopes of building his strength back up again. The sun starts to come up now and the marlin begins circling around the old man's skiff, making the old man one step closer to catching the giant fish. Every circle that the fish does brings it closer and closer to the boat. As the marlin circles, the old man slowly brings in the rope. He begins to feel very faint and dizzy and then he starts to see black spots before his eyes. The fish is circling closer and closer to the boat until it is finally close enough for the old man to kill.


Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.