The way The Old Man and the Sea ended can be interpreted however the reader wants. That is the beauty of literature, is it not? What separates this novel from other novels is that it does not have your typical fairy tale ending which I really enjoyed. It keeps things interesting. I would call the ending happy in the sense that I believe Santiago, the old man, finally reached a level of satisfaction in his life that he had never before reached. He realized just how far men can push the limits of nature and that there is always going to be another battle to fight. At least, that is how I interpreted the ending of this novel. In a literal sense, the ending did kind of catch me off guard in terms of what actually happened in the story. I thought, probably like a lot of other people, that Santiago would catch the marlin and basically live happily ever after. I especially enjoyed the change of events which involved the attack of the different breeds of sharks. When the sharks had ruined the meat of the marlin that Santiago had worked so hard for and he saw just how wounded his hand was from battling the great fish, the old man realized he might have outdone himself that time. Him apologizing to the marlin was a really interesting part of the story to me. It showed how much respect he has for the sea and all its inhabitants. There are a couple other things that happen at the conclusion of the story, but I felt like this could have ended the story just as well. The story included the elements of man versus nature and man versus himself in such a way that it really hit home for me. Most people find Hemingway boring, but I loved this story. Perhaps it's my guilty pleasure, but I this story was an easy read that really had a lot of meaning to me, especially at the end. The young boy Manolin works to continue the old man's legacy as a fisherman through his work for the rest of his life due to how inspired he was by the old man. Say what you want about the tragedy of the end of the old man's fishing career, but I think this story was meant to end on a positive note.