Looking for a way to ease the grief caused by the death of his wife, Tomas Alonso gives his son the only photograph of his mother - a youthful portrait taken on the shore of a distant ocean. Santiago becomes intrigued with this mystical body of water. Tomas Alonso, who himself has never seen the ocean, invents for his son an impossible place, naive and magnificent, complete with trees and oxen.
As Santiago grows older, Tomas has difficulty masking the poverty they live in and the contempt of their neighbors. Tomas, always an advocate of peace and patience in the face of conflict, finds himself forced to attack a man to recapture his self-respect and the admiration of his son. The bloody event puts Tomas in prison and leaves the boy on his own, responsible now for the fields and oxen.
When a stranger re-enters their drastically altered lives, he engineers a dangerous plan to reverse what has transpired, giving the men a chance to start over.