The Bass the River and Sheila Mant Essay

All the stories had one common background they had one moral upbringing in all of them. Example in the cold equation his major choice that will affect the main character for the rest of his days was life and death a similar choice was made in the pit and the pengilum, Gold rush was need over greed the list can go on. I picked the bass the river and Sheila Mant witch taught the audience about choosing childhood over manhood. It shows a boy in his mid teen years conflicted with fishing and his crush and must choose. The author must have written this story off of personal experience. He shows in detail on what the main character knows on getting inside the mind of a teenage boy witch shown up in his writing to prove his powerful point on picking child or manhood.

The story does not show direct physical description of the main character nor his name, we do know that he is a well-toned person since he is a swimming athlete and likes to be outdoors. It plays an important part in his role because being an athlete he sees Sheila as someone who might share the same qualities as him witch he assumes they would be a perfect match together. The Main characters personality can be described as smitten and stalker like who stops and smells the daisies every now and then. This will play a major part in his role in the story because the climax of the story will tear him between the two things in his life. He believes strongly in the things he cares for point and case is when he puts the fishing pole in the boat. He believes things will go things his way; they don’t that is his Achilles heel to the situation tearing him between both fantasy and reality. Obviously the things that motivate the main character are His obsession with Sheila Mant and fishing. Those two things drive him to do his everyday necessities and go the extra mile to go beyond him to achieve his goals and beyond. All the things in his attributes of his personality will all come to one challenge and that is choosing witch is more important.

The primary conflict is not really a problem until you put them together picking boyhood fishing over the manhood Sheila Mant. When it boils down to it at the end of the day you have to pick one or the other that has how life works since the dawn of mankind. The conflict counts 2 people our unnamed main character and Sheila Mant the third one is a random bass fish. Like I said earlier they all combine and make something from good separate to a bad outcome combined. The conflict could of easily been resolved if he was direct with her in the 1st place about he like fishing. He also could have double checked to make sure that the rod wasn’t there then again he did not know things would end up like this. The end result seemed like a bad idea from the start he let go of the fish but he didn’t win Sheila’s love in the end and pretty much got used in the end. It implies that we should always look at life with the glass half full and look at any situation from all angles to get a positive outcome. In doing so the author shows the situation by bringing it into the light and showing it for what it is.

The main symbol in the story must be the Bass. The bass represents the main character’s childhood and innocence of youth and or life. When the character obsesses over is fishing of Sheila that is why it is a symbol. A good metaphor in the story is anything the two do with aquatics. All the main subjects in the story revolved around the water, the main characters desire for swimming and fishing and Sheila Mant loves to suntan on the lake and swim as well. I saw foreshadowing at parts about the main character his name for one and the other was his role in swim team also some more important parts of background on both characters. It doesn’t affect the story dramatically but enough to wonder why and what is that more background to be specific that’s why they have sequels for movies, books, and so on to deal with foreshadowing from the last. The mood of the story was a mix of boyhood crushes mixed with personal conflict on who he is and what he wants to become. The author applied this by getting inside the head of a teenage kid most likely himself to see from past experience witch transitions into the whole stories theme.

Because of the way the conflict is resolved for the main character and because of the techniques the author used I know that the theme is the choice of manhood vs. childhood. The characters themselves support my interpretation the main character in his athletic shape toned for reeling in fish and Sheila Mant and her 17 year old figure. The conflict and the resolution proves my point on how it is childhood vs. manhood. By showing his final decision in picking Sheila Mant over the fish he made his choice in picking “Manhood” over his childhood. The techniques supported the theme by showing off the inner workings of the main characters head.