The Old Man and The Sea - Character Analysis: The Marlin

I know that it is sort of odd that a marlin is such an influential part of the story, but I genuinely thought of him as just another character.  I know he is not really the typical character, but I think that he deserves to be thought of as one, so I only think its fair to give him a character analysis.  
A character is defined as something with physical characteristics as well as emotional characteristics.  The easier one to describe would be the physical characteristics.  Obviously, the fish is massive and incredibly strong. He was a total of eighteen feet long (Hemingway 58).  He also had a long sword-like snout and a gigantic tail to go along with it.  The old man describes him as beautiful (Hemingway 45), and from what I hear, I have to agree.  And of course the old man thinks the fish is beautiful, it is what he has been waiting for for nearly three months.  
The fish had a brain, therefore it had some sort of emotions.  Also, the old man describes the fish as having emotions, so I think that he does, too.  Santiago says that the fish is not only calm, but also noble (Hemingway 45).  This makes the old man see the fish as a worthy opponent for his battle.  The fish is able to pull the man steadily along for a number of days.  This causes the old man to describe the marlin as "so fearless and so confident" (Hemingway 42).  The old man almost develops a relationship of sorts with the large fish.  He even feels distressed when the sharks eat the marlin, and apologizes for going out too far to actually catch him (Hemingway 55).  Even if these traits were not real, he still sees the fish that way and gives it his respect for having them.  
Because this is a work of fiction, the fish can have whatever traits the author decides it will have.  Sometimes. authors exaggerate their characters to make a specific point.  In this book, I think that the fish was given such a strong character because it was needed to show the amount of respect that the old man had for the fish, and  that he was capable of giving his respect to any deserving thing.

Hemingway, E. The Old Man and The Sea. New York, NY: Scribner, 1980