Day One Summary

During day one in The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is simply referred to as 'the old man', with no capitalization. When day one starts, the old man has been trying to catch a fish for eighty four days and has not succeeded. This is especially bad for the old man, because fishing is his livelihood. Others call him 'salao' which is basically their way of calling him very, very unlucky, which is true.

There is a boy (who is really Manolin), who feels bad for the old man and helps him out, determining that the two of them need to stick together especially because of the difficulties that the old man has been experiencing. The old man's real name is not used in the text except for when the boy uses it, and the boy also provides a physical description of the old man. The only description provided is that the old man is blotchy, wrinkly, and has eyes the color of the sea.

The old man was the person who taught the boy to fish, so there is really a better reason as to why the boy wants for them to stick together and to help the old man in his difficult time. The old man has gone through fishing dry spells before and it has ended before, so he is hoping this dry spell will soon end as well. The characters sit on "The Terrace" and make fun of the old man for his misfortunes, but the old man seems to be unfazed by their ridicule.

As the day goes on the young boy still wants to help the old man, but the old man wants the boy to simply watch out for himself and take care of himself instead. The rest of the first day goes by without much happening, except for the reader being introduced to where the old man lives and reading some unimportant dialogue between the old man and the boy while they are sitting in the old man's shack.

The old man sleeps on newspaper and dreams of Africa, of the lions and the beaches.