He goes through this superior ritual for “it is what a man must do” (26).  In order for Santiago to reclaim his manhood, he must follow the laws of men.  For him, this means he must do what “he was born for”:  to fish. If he can be successful in catching and thus subjugating the fish, then he will have regained his masculinity through fulfilling his duty as a man.  Therefore, success must come at all costs, even his own life, for “man is not made for defeat.  A man can be destroyed but not defeated” (103).  Santiago comes close to proving this theory in his obsessive struggle with the fish.  As for the bounty itself, Hemingway casts it as “the biggest that he [Santiago] had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of….”  (63).  The man on his quest and the fish in his glory clash in an epic battle between man and nature.