Presently Santiago realizes that “It was not disgraceful and it

carried no loss of true pride” to have humility (110). The old man soon
acknowledges the human interdependence when he thinks:
The boy keeps me alive, he thought. I must not deceive myself
(106).
And from this humility comes his further realizations. Now the
whole perspective becomes clear to him. Besides the boy Manolin, he
now remembers all his good neighbors who must be worrying for him,
and he realizes “I live in a good town” (115). This shows his ultimate
identification with mankind. And it proves the inappropriateness of Leo
Gurkos comment that The Old Man and the Sea is the culmination of
Hemingways . . . disengagement from the social world” (171). In the
end, when he reaches his shack and the boy comes to him, he
immediately realizes how pleasant it was