English Old Man and the Sea

What type of blanket did the boy place on the old man's shoulders?

An army blanket.

What does agua mala mean?

Bad water or jellyfish.

What did the boy bring for supper?

Black beans and rice, fried bananas, and some stew.

What did the old man and the boy drink in the morning?

Coffee out of condensed milk cans.

Who did the old man want to take fishing?

Dick Sisler and the great DiMaggio.

What were the old man's principal friends on the ocean?

Flying fish

What did the old man no longer dream of?

Great fish, fights, contests of strength, and of his wife.

Why did the boy's dad think John J. McGraw was the greatest manager?

He came to their town the most.

What did the old man think of the birds?

He felt sorry for them, especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and were looking for food, but almost never found any. He though birds have a harder life than humans except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones.

How did the old man wake up the boy?

He held one of the boys' feet.

What are Santiago's living conditions?

He lived in a small shack that was made of guano and there was one bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to cook with charcoal. The walls were brown and were covered with overlapping leaves.

What does the old man bring to eat when he fishes?

He never carried a lunch because eating bored him. He only brought a bottle of water in the bow of the skiff.

Why does the boy care so much about the old man?

He taught the boy how to fish.

Based on the boy's statements, what do you know about his parents?

His parents do not have much faith in the old man.

What did the old man use as a pillow?

His trousers and put the newspaper inside them.

Why was the old man so happy when he saw plankton?

It meant fish.

What was the Portuguese man-of-war?

It was a purple, iridescent, gelatinous bladder of a Portuguese man-of-war. It turned on its side and the righted itself. It floated cheerfully as a bubble with its long deadly purple filaments trailing a yard behind it in the water.

What did the boy say for the J in John J. McGraw?

Jota

What was the name of the store owner?

Martin.

What did the boy and the old man pretend?

They pretended the old man had a pot of yellow rice with fish and he might eat it cold while the boy had dinner at home. The boy asked if he could take the cast net and the old man let him.

How was each line setup?

They were the thickness of a pencil and were looped onto a green-sapped stick so that any pull or touch on the bait would make the stick dip and each line had two forty-fathom coils which could be connected quickly to other coils so a fish could take out over three-hundred fathoms of line.

What does the old man look like?

Thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. There were brown blotches of skin cancer from the sun reflecting off the sea on his cheeks and down the sides of his face. His hands had deep scars from handling heavy fish on the chords. His eyes were the color of the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

What did the boy want to get for the old man?

Water, soap, a good towel, another shirt and a jacket for the winter and shoes and another blanket for the winter.

What did the old man want to give Martin?

the belly meat of a big fish.

How far down were the baits that the old man used?

40, 75, 100, and 125 fathoms.

How long had the old man gone without catching a fish?

84 days

What did the old man say was a lucky number?

85

What number did the old man get he great record?

87

What is a bodega?

A small grocery store.

What was lying on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt? Why was it there?

A tinted picture of his wife and he took it down because it made him too lonely to see it.

What is a fathom?

A unit of length equal to 6 feet.

What did the old man dream of?

Africa and when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches with the lions that played like young cats in the dusk. The high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along the coast every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats that road through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck.

What is the old man's alarm clock?

Age

What did the man sleep on?

Newspapers on top of the springs in his bed.

What does que va mean?

No way

What does the old man think of la mar?

She is very kind and beautiful, but she can be so cruel. He thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors. If she did cruel things it was out of her control and a mere accident. He thought the moon affects her like it would a women.

What did the old man do in the morning to keep himself warm?

Shiver

When do people call the sea el mar?

Some of the young fisherman, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of the sea as el mar. They spoke of the sea as someone to have a contest with or an enemy.

What is the old man and the boys favorite sports team?

The New York Yankees.

What teams do the boy fear?

The Tigers of Detroit and the Indians of Cleveland.

How did the man-of-war bird help the old man? What does this reveal about his relationship with nature?

The bird helped him to find the big dolphin. This shows that the old man is informed on the reactions a animal has when hunting for food and takes this to his advantage in order to help him locate fish.

Why did the boy's parents tell him he could not fish with the old man anymore?

The old man was salao, the worst form of unlucky.

What were relics of his wife?

The pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and another of the Virgin of Cobre.

What was the old man's shirt compared to?

The sail and the patches were faded to many different shades by the sun.

What does la mar mean?

The sea and what people call her when they love her.

Although the young fisherman make fun of Santiago, he is not angry with them. What does this reveal about him? Why don't the old men make fun of him?

This shows that the old man has confidence in his self and has hope that he will one day catch a fish no matter what anyone else says about him.

What are guano?

Tough bud shields of royal palm.

Where the water supply?

Two streets down from the old man's shack.

What type of bait did the boy give to the old man?

two fresh small tunas, or albacores, which hung on the two deepest lines, a big blue runner and yellow jack that had bee used before.