You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. It you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?
Santiago questions the moral meaning of killing the marlin. He recognises that he did not act only from necessity or the need to earn a living; pride and his identity as a fisherman also drove him. This makes the act more difficult to justify. His admiration and affection for the fish do not remove the fact that he deliberately killed something he regarded as noble and worthy.
In The Old Man and the Sea, the passage captures Santiago’s conflicted relationship with nature. He sees the marlin as both an opponent and a creature he loves and respects. His question about sin remains unresolved, which is central to the passage: affection may deepen rather than erase moral responsibility. The quotation therefore explores whether respect can coexist with destruction, and whether actions undertaken from pride carry a different moral weight from those required simply for survival.