The Old Man and the Sea - Day 4

Two hours after the first shark attack, two more sharks swim up to the marlin. The sharks attack the marlin's body, and even though the old man knows that it is a hopeless battle without his harpoon, he uses a knife to try to fight off the sharks. He kills the two sharks, but only after they take more of the marlin meat. The old man feels very bad now for killing the marlin. He feels that it was all a waste now that the sharks ate him. He apologizes for going out to sea so far where he did not belong. He tells the marlin that it did neither of them very good, because the sharks were not worthy of eating the great marlin's meat. The old man can not bring himself to look at the torn up marlin, when another shark attacks. The old man kills the single shark with his knife, and he loses his knife in the battle. Now the old man has only the clubs he used to kill bait fish as a weapon. Two more sharks arrive and the old man manages to club them enough to get them to leave, but only after they take a very large chunk of the marlin. Again the old man apologizes to the marlin, but tries to justify killing it by how many sharks the marlin has killed. He vows to the marlin to keep killing the sharks until he himself dies, although he hopes that no more sharks will come. Later that night, a giant pack of sharks shows up and attacks the remains of the marlin. It is dark so the old man can not see, but he swings his club blindly at the sharks anyways. His club is taken away and now he is out of weapons. He broke a piece of wood off the boat's tiller and desperately swung it at the remaining sharks. He stabbed the sharp end of the wood into the last remaining shark and killed it. The pack of sharks ate the last of the marlin's meat in the attack. The old man is dreadfully tired when he arrives back at the shore. He pulls his boat in and walks home. He has to stop many times before he gets home because he is so tired. Finally the old man made it home and went to sleep.

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