the boy and the old man in the story. (Effectively, it is a disembodied voice, not representative of any character in the novel, who tells the story.) 

The point of view is third person omniscient. Third person means a narrator who isn't a character in the story is telling the story. Omniscient, meaning "all-knowing", is when the narrator knows what many or all of the characters are thinking and feeling. This type of narration gives the reader a broader view of all the characters, not just one.

The author uses third-person omniscient narration, which means the narrator hovers "godlike" over the story, knowing all that is going on. He is able to give us background information and can flit in and out of different people's heads. We see this in action in the opening of the novel:

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty . . . .

As we understand, the narrator gives us background: we learn directly and simply that the old man has not caught a fish in 84 days. Hemingway doesn't have to contrive dialogue, for example, to communicate this to us. We also move quickly to what the boy's parents have to say, and then into the emotions of the boy (sad).

The great advantage of third-person, omniscient narration is flexibility. There are no limits on what the reader can be told, because the narrator has no limits on his ability to know what is going on. Hemingway, nevertheless, tells most of the story from the old man, Santiago's, point of view, describing what is happening to him as he perceives it and letting us know his thoughts.

Hemingway uses a very spare, simple style of narration. This makes the story easy to follow and conveys a sense of Santiago's Christlike purity of heart. The simple narration supports a simple, straightforward story: Hemingway doesn't have to tie himself in knots to communicate information: he can simply directly tell us what he wants us to know.

A disadvantage to third-person narration is the distance it can put between the reader and the action. If we think of different types of narration as different ways of filming a scene, first person means the camera is always on the narrator's shoulder, so we always see everything up close and personal. In third person, the camera is everywhere: we can get long shots and panoramic vistas, which can be nice, but such shots also lack immediacy.

Primarily, Hemingway's narration in this novel works very much to his advantage. It's a case of form fitting function.

There is third person omniscient and third person limited point of view. In omniscient, the reader has access to many points of view from many characters. The reader can gain knowledge of many things that one character could not possibly know. The third person limited is where the reader follows one character around. The advantage is that the narrator might be more observant and the reader can 'see' more however, they are limited as to what one character can see or experience. Another advantage of third person limited is that the reader can have more objectivity and what they see is filtered through one character. However a disadvantage would be that the reader is distanced from the emotional life of the character.

This story is told in the third person omniscient point of view. The narrator is not a character in the story, but he is an objective observer who tells the reader the thoughts and feelings of most or all of the characters in the story.

The advantages of this kind of narration is that it provides a wider perspective from which the thoughts of the old man and the other characters can be presented. At the beginning, we not only know what Santiago is thinking, but what the other fishermen think of the old man. The third person narrator is usually a more reliable narrator than first person since the reader knows the other characters from the narrator's perspective only.

One disadvantage of the third person point of view is that the reader isn't able to make as personal a connection with the narrator as he/she can if the narrator is first person. Since a character in the story tells it in the first person point of view, the reader gets to know that character well, providing the opportunity to empathize with him/her more. First person can also make for a better story sometimes if the reader doesn't know what the other characters are thinking. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, chose such interesting narrators for his stories. Reading "The Cask of Amontillado" or "The Tell-Tale Heart" from the narrator's point of view helped to create the eerie atmosphere needed for his gothic literature.

Three is a magic number in the novella: three days, three levels of nature, and three parts.  The novella can be read as tragedy, so a reader may apply Aristotle's cause-effect triangle.  I teach the novella using rhetorical analysis: the novel is the fish and Hemingway is the old man and the sharks are his critics.  This conforms to Aristotle's other triangle: ethos (writer), pathos (reader), logos (text).  In other words, the writer can never please his ideal reader, or himself, with the book, only bring back a great big skeleton of one.

Day one = Inciting Incident = Preparing to write.  Hemingway focuses on land, as Santiago prepares to go to "way out" to sea.  The boy, his disciple, contrasts with the old man and the other fisherman.  The boy will reappear in the end.

Day two = Peripeteia (turning point) and Anagnorisis (climax) = Writing the Book.  Focus here is on the sea as it contrasts the land and air.  The fish is analogous to Santiago (brothers), and it contrasts also with the birds above and the sharks below.  The turning point and climax come in killing the fish and the remorse thereafter.

Day three = Catastrophe and Resolution = Defending the book after publishing.  The focus here is on fighting the sharks.  It ends with the resolution that the old man, a Christ-figure, becoming aware of his suffering and potential, symbolized by the skeleton.

Whenever we think of points of view or narration in fiction, there are three main types of point of view that are adopted. Firstly, there is first person narration, where the narrator is a character who appears in the story and relates it from his or her point of view, using the first person, "I." Secondly, there is third person limited, where the narrator is not a character in the story, but is exterior to it, choosing to follow around only one character and having access to their thoughts and feelings alone. The story is told in the third person, "he," or "she." Finally, there is the omniscient narrator, where again the narrator is exterior to the story and the tale is told in the third person, but the narrator can see the feelings and thoughts of all characters, having a god-like perspective on the action.

A quick examination of the text of this great novella reveals that the point of view is omniscient, as the narrator stands outside of the story and takes a wider perspective on it. It does, clearly, follow Santiago around for the majority of the tale, but it equally follows Manolin, revealing his thoughts and feelings, and the thoughts and feelings of other characters, such as what the other fishermen think of Santiago:

The older fishermen... looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it.

This reveals that the point of view is that of the omniscient narrator, which allows the universal significance of the tale to be more clearly suggested.

The Old Man and the Sea is narrated in third person, but the narrator focuses primarily on the thoughts and actions of the old man, Santiago. One of the first things we learn about him is his optimism. He has faith that things will get better when they are hard, and the fortitude to work through his struggles. He does not despair even though he hasn't caught a fish in 85 days, and cannot afford his own dinner. He is good friends with Manolin, a young boy who he has mentored since Manolin was five. We get to see Manolin's perspective briefly at the end of the book, when Manolin finds Santiago asleep after his unsuccessful return. Manolin's chief qualities are his loyalty, his faith and his gratitude to Santiago. Some of Santiago's main traits are his pride in his trade, his optimism, and his love of the sea.

The main points of any story are usually entertaining and enjoyable or thought-provoking. The Old Man and the Sea is both of these: it is enjoyable because it is dramatic, and it is thought-provoking in its reflections on the human spirit and life.

One component of drama is suspense, and there is plenty of suspense in the story of The Old Man and the Sea. For the most part, readers are kept in suspense because they want to know if the old man will catch the fish. They also want to know if the old man will survive for so long at sea, and they want to know how the old man will be received by all those who doubted him when he returns to land. Another component of drama is tension, and this is created by the battle between the old man and the marlin. This tension is sustained for most of the story, as the old man refuses to give up in his pursuit of the marlin.

The second point of many stories is to be thought-provoking. The Old Man and the Sea might make the reader think, for example, about the human spirit and how much the human spirit can endure. It might also make the reader think about the importance of friendship. Indeed, the boy demonstrates that true friendship is defined by loyalty, selflessness, and love. The story might also make the reader think about the value of a human life and whether that value is determined by the friendships one acquires, the battles one endures, or the successes one achieves. While out at sea, the old man ponders questions such as these, and the reader is encouraged to do likewise.