Old Man in the Sea can be read as metafiction: fiction about fiction. In this sense, Hemingway (the author) is the Old Man, Santiago. Manolin is the next generation of writers, those who would follow in Hemingway's footsteps and emulate his style (Camus, DeLillo, McCarthy).
The book, The Old Man and The Sea, is the marlin. Hemingway as an artist is venturing out in the artistic community, the sea. The sharks are literary critics, those who try to take a bite out of his art.
Hemingway seems to be saying that the modern artist must suffer once he has finished a novel (caught a great fish) at the hands of critics. This is his cross to bear. What is left, in the end, is a skeleton, a shell of his original artistic vision.
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