As the man is lying in bed dreaming of the king of the beasts, his beautiful friend the marlin has been reduced to mere harbor trash:“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….” (126). The tourists, upon inquiring about the remnants of the great fish, are erroneously, through the loss of translation, informed that it was a shark.  Both the old man and the fish's existence remain anonymous to the outside world.  Their great epic battle that nearly killed both of them left no impression on the world.  It was just another example of man’s inability to control the world around him.