Why does nobody talk about how 'The Old Man and the Sea' ends with a skeleton?

I read it back in high school around 2005 and just got around to picking it up again last month. I remembered the basic story, a guy catches a giant fish and sharks eat it on the way back. But you know what hit me different this time? The END. The old man drags this massive FISH SKELETON to shore and just leaves it there. Tourists mistake it for a shark. And I sat there thinking, wait, that's IT? No big speech about life or anything. It made me wonder if Hemingway was just trolling everybody or if there was some deeper point I missed. Has anyone else reread a classic and found the ending way more bizarre than they remembered?

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lilyfisher4d agoMost Upvoted

My buddy reread it last March and said the same thing - skeleton felt like a joke.