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The story tells of an old man <separated>DEF from a boy:
❝ He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. ❞
The <separation> is <concomitant>DEF with his dreaming of lions:
❝ “You ought to go to bed now so that you will be fresh in the morning. I wil take the things back to the Terrace.” […]
The boy went out. They had eaten with no light on the table and the old man took off his trousers and went to bed in the dark. He rolled his trousers up to make a pillow, putting the newspaper inside them. He rolled himself in the blanket and slept on the other old newspapers that covered the springs of the bed.
He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes […]
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength nor of his wife.
He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy.
He never dreamed about the boy.
❞
On his latest trip alone, the man catches a big fish. The fish is non-<concomitant> to (a) the presence of the boy, as the old man laments about the <separation> while struggling to keep the fish hooked:
❝ “I wish I had the boy,” the old man said aloud. “I’m being towed by a fish and I’m the towing bitt.” ❞
and (b) his dreaming of the lions, as the struggle with the fish keeps him busy:
❝ I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is left? Don’t think, old man, he said to himself. Rest gently now against the wood and think of nothing. He is working. Work as little as you can. ❞
After several days of struggle, he manages to kill the fish. He binds it to the skiff for the return trip, as he can’t take it onboard due to its size. On the way back, he begins to <identify>DEF with him:
❝ Now he knew there was the fish and his hands and back were no dream. […] With his mouth shut and his tail straight up and down we sail like brothers. Then his head started to become a little unclear and he thought, is he bringing me in or am I bringing him in? If I were towing him behind there would be no question. Nor if the fish were in the skiff, with all dignity gone, there would be no question either. But they were sailing together lashed side by side and the old man thought, let him bring me in if it pleases him. I am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm. ❞
The <identity> lasts even as sharks take bites at the fish on the return trip:
❝ He did not like to look at the fish anymore since he had been mutilated. When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit. ❞
Defeated, the old man manages to reach the shore and come home, but his sleep is both without the boy at his side and without dreams:
❝ Inside the shack he leaned the mast against the wall. In he dark he found a water bottle and took a drink. Then he lay down on the bed. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.
He was asleep when the boy looked in the door in the morning. ❞
As he sleeps, the boy going out the door is followed by a transition to a scene where tourists <reconstitute>DEF the fish in imagination, as they mistake it for a shark:
❝ As
the boy went out the door and down the worn coral rock road he was crying again.
That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbour.
“What’s that?” she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.
“Tiburon,” the waiter said. “Eshark.” He was meaning to explain what had happened.
“I didn’t know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails.”
“I didn’t either,” her male companion said.
❞
This <reconstitution> of the fish parallels the <reconstitution> that follows, when the boy watches the old man sleeping like the tourists were watching the carcass, as if <identifying> the man to the fish again. In this parallel, the boy, who was non-<concomitant> with the dreaming about the lions, is <concomitant> with the <reconstitution> of the dreaming:
❝ Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions. ❞
