The Old Man and the Sea: The Sharks

The sharks in Old Man and the Sea are extremely important and symbolic in the novel. The sharks come about after Santiago has captured and killed the marlin. He stabbed it with his harpoon causing blood to pollute the water. The sharks smell the blood and come to the skiff to eat the marlin's corpse. They represent death and it's inevitability and how you cannot escape from death. Despite Santiago's greatest efforts the sharks devour the marlin's corpse and leave Santiago with nothing but a skeleton. They come into play while Santiago is extremely tired and pained from his battle with the fish. Despite his fatigue he fights off their attacks to the best ability but in the end it is to no avail. This represents how despite how hard you may try you can never escape death or something bad happening. The sharks are extremely important to the novel because in essence they negate everything that Santiago has worked for. They crush his spirit in the end and make him loose his ever-present optimism by the end. He worked as hard as he could to kill and take in that fish and even viewed him as a brother. The main damage done to him was because he felt he had disrespected his brother by letting the sharks devour the fish. They cause damage to both the fish in the form of eating him and to Santiago by destroying his spirit. He manages to kill and wound all of the sharks that come after the fish and at one point even goes so far as leaning over the side of the skiff and punching it in the nose. His determination is very strong and he does absolutely everything in his power to stop them. Due to the power of mother nature and her ability to take away the sharks are able to overwhelm and eat the fish however destroying Santiago's optimism. The sharks are very important to the novel.