The Old Man and the Sea is Hemingway's masterpiece. He mainly wrote that the old fisherman Santiago didn't catch any fish for several months, so he decided to go fishing in the farther waters. In the open sea, after several days and nights of mediation, he finally caught an unprecedented marlin. He tied the fish to the stern and prepared to sail home, but the blood of the fish attracted sharks, so the old man fought with the sharks for days and nights and finally drove them away, but the marlin was also eaten up by the sharks, leaving only a pair of fish bones.

This work mainly embodies Hemingway's "tough character", that is, the spirit of hard struggle, perseverance and never giving up of the old people. There is a famous saying that "man can be destroyed, but not defeated", but the old man's fish was finally eaten up, which also expressed the irresistible fate and the smallness of man in front of fate.