Analyzing Sheila Mant's Poem

In the story “The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant” a boy takes a girl named Sheila Mant on a date and has to make a difficult decision. That difficult decision is his dream girl or a huge fish that he might never get the chance to catch again. This is a hard choice to make because he loves fishing, but Sheila on the other hand does not. He could pick Sheila because he loves her very much. For the past couple of summers he has been admiring and watching her. When ever she would look or glance towards him he would do something to impress her. One time when she looked over at him and he climbed up onto his diving board and did his best back tuck he could do just to get her attention. Another reason why he could possibly pick her is he thinks

Sometimes people have to make a hard decision or choice in life when deep down they have to end up letting go of one of the options. In the story, “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” that was brought to life by W.D Wetherell, when the narrator had to make a hard choice of either letting Sheila go or the bass.There are many reasons the narrator had one of the hardest choices, including his immaturity as a teenage boy. The other main reason that it was a hard choice was that he wanted to impress Sheila, and since she didn’t like fishing he had to pretend to be someone he was not.

In the short story “Lysandra’s Poem”, by Budge Wilson, Lysandra is justified in taking revenge on Elaine. This is because Elaine was never a good friend to begin with. Elaine mentions that Lysandra was always made fun of as a child, being given the nickname “Pigeon-Toed Cochrane”. Elaine had never stood up for Lysandra, not even once. If they truly were best friends, Elaine would have tried to stand up for Lysandra. Furthermore, when Lysandra spends most of her time writing her poem for the contest, Elaine states that she hangs out with her other friends because Lysandra is “of no use at all” to her. Additionally, Elaine disregards Lysandra’s feelings toward the contest. Knowing that Lysandra was passionate about poetry, Elaine calls the contest

Wetherell’s story “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant”. The 14-year old narrator is facing a huge predicament. The boy is on a date with the girl of his dreams. The boy and girl are canoeing up a river in Vermont. The young girl, Sheila, has informed the narrator of her disgust of fishing. This is a hefty problem for the boy. The narrator absolutely loves to fish. In fact, during their date he has a pole casted into the water. After hearing this, the boy was determined not give Sheila any knowledge of his favorite hobby. Though, the narrator neglected to discreetly reel in the line. What seemed to be the biggest bass in the river, snagged on the line. There is no way the boy could let Sheila know of this. The rest of the night, the narrator maneuvers the boat perfectly and somehow manages to keep the fish on the line, without Sheila having any knowledge. They finally reach their destination and the boy is faced with a crippling decision. The boy has to either cut the line, letting the fish go, or risk having Sheila lose all interest in him by reeling in the fish. The narrator decides to cut the line and says, “With a sick nauseous feeling in my stomach, I saw the rod unbend”(Wetherell 40). In this quote, the narrator is overcome with a sick feeling for letting that fish go. He knows he has made a mistake. Later that night, Sheila ditches him for a different fellow. The boy was untrue to himself and what he really wanted. Fishing is what really made him happy. The boy learned a lesson that many people still need to learn today. Do not let others influence the way one may act or speak. Be true to oneself, and happiness will

In this story, “The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” this boy is willing to give up his entire reputation and passion for being a fisherman just because the pretty faced, inconsiderate, selfless girl thinks fishing is boring and not exciting. When the boy finally gets the courage to ask Sheila out of this concert thing with his boat through the river to be alone with her, he puts out a fishing line out of habit and picks the girl up, and she does not see the rod and just starts talking on and on about herself. Meanwhile, this boy has accidentally hooked the supposed biggest bass ever, and the girl does not realize because she is just too busy talking. Eventually, the boy cut the fishing line, and when they get to the actual concert, he realizes they have nothing in common. When the girl gets a ride home from another one of her friends, the boy goes back not only to a broken heart, but also he has seemed to have lost his ego and reputation just by trying to gain this cute faced neighbor's

One of the main themes of this story is that sacrifice. The narrator of this story is not given a name but he is fourteen year old. The narrator has a major crush on a women- seventeen year old, Sheila Mant. The narrator finally, and I say finally, asks Sheila on a date via the narrator’s boat. Then the narrator is in a pickle, he catches the biggest bass he ever caught. He has to choose over Sheila on the bass. What does he choose? Sheila of course but towards the end of the story he regrets that decision. Just throughout the story W.D. Wetherel uses many specific imagery. Imagery is a way of writing that the author gives you visual descriptive writing or figurative language. One quote that stood out to me was “There would be other Sheila Mant’s in life, other fish, and though I came close once or twice, it was these secrets, hidden tuggings in the night that claimed me, and I never made that mistake again.”(41) This quote has a lot of meaning in this story

In the poem, “Dusting,” by Julia Alvarez, the speaker is being rebellious against her mother and wants to do different things than what her mother wants her to do. In the first stanza, the poet writes that the speaker writes her name many times on dusty furniture “each morning” while the mother followed her to dust the furniture and the mess by the girl. This is an example of the speaker rebelling her mother since this is a metaphor meaning that the girl wants to accomplish different things than her mother but her mother keeps on erasing her accomplishments and wants the girl to be just like her. Another evidence in the poem is at the end of stanza two, where the speaker says “But I refuse with every mark to be like her, anonymous.” This phrase

“Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry was published in 1997 during a time of personal struggle for Cherry and her dad. This short, free verse poem consists of twenty nine perplexing lines. The poet’s nontraditional placement of line breaks cause some ideas to fall off in mid-sentence, while others never complete the thought. This creates enjambments which mimic the disease’s confusing nature. The speaker of this poem is the author, who is also the daughter of whom she writes about. Ideally, the writer narrates the poem in order to genuinely explain the turmoil loved ones face on a daily basis while dealing with this disease. The beginning of the poem creatively uses a simile to introduce us to “a crazy old man back

In the story "The Bass, the River and Sheila Mant" by W.D. Wetherall, the narrator acts like someone he 's not to impress a girl. The narrator had been waiting the whole summer to ask out Sheila Mant. Every day he observes her moods and her actions on the lake. When he finally got the guts to ask her out she, said "yes" and they went to a concert. The narrator loved to fish and he practiced all the time. For his big date he cleaned up his boat and got it all nice and shiny to impress Sheila. On their way to the concert there the boy set up his fishing rod, and out of nowhere he felt a gigantic tug on the line. He knew it was a Largemouth Bass. Since Sheila had been telling him how she doesn’t like fishing, the boy did not want her to know that he had his rod out. Right there he had

The poem, At Mornington was written by Australian poet, Gwen Harwood. It was published in 1975 under her own name. At Mornington is about a woman reminiscing about her past when she is with her friend. There are many themes explored in this poem including memory, death and time passing.

The poem "Kindness" by Naomi Shihab Nye speaks about how you experience kindness and what it really is. The main point in this poem is that in order to experience people's kindness you need to experience hurt, sorrow, and loneliness. The author says that when you loose everything and have no one or thing that when kindness comes along it lifts you up "and then goes with you everywhere/ like a shadow or a friend" (33-34). When portraying this message the author uses a sad but hopeful tone to send the message she wants to say. This tone helps portray the message because you can feel how sad someone is when they are lonely and they have nothing. Then when the author changes the tone at the end of the poem in the last stanza to hopeful tone the reader can feel the hope and happiness that a person feels when they are down and they are given kindness.

How would you feel if someone could control what you were thinking? In “The Feed” written by M.T Anderson, everyone living in the community had a feed in their brain that was controlled by one large organization. Violet, the main character, suffers through a malfunction in her feed that changes the way she sees her society. Most people’s opinions can be changed when they have experienced the benefits and the disadvantages of something. Since Violet is aware of how life is with and without the feed, she becomes hesitant to believing that her community is being run efficiently. She realizes how her feed affects everything she does and how without it, she would be incapable. Based on her experiences, thoughts, and actions, I can infer that Violet

As I read this story, I wonder if the narrator will pick bass or Sheila. It is possible that he’ll pick the bass. Only because bass loves to fish everyday every night he goes fishing still yet he doesn’t hate it. Second of all bass has lots of knowledge in fishing then anything else. He also is really impressive at it and the fish is really big. Sheila is pretty bass likes her she seems kind and knows lots of stuff and always being creped on by bass. Second of all Sheila is older then bass by about 1 year. Last is the funny part is when

The boy can either choose to keep the girl, or the bass. He ends up choosing the girl. We know that he gives up the bass from how he cuts the line to let the bass go. The boy had chosen to keep Sheila over the bass, from how she looked in the boat when she had reached her arms towards and the boy could see the shape of her body. The narrator regrets his decision, due to Sheila leaving him during their date to take a ride in Eric Caswell’s Corvette. He also regrets letting go of the bass instead of Sheila, because he didn’t see how she really was on the boat, since he was too distracted be the bass. I have one regret that still haunts me to this day, just like the narrators. My regret is choosing to do drugs in the past. I could have chosen the smart path and not have done them, but I didn’t. My common sense was thrown out the window, because I thought it was the cool thing to do. I did it for the attention, now (1 ½ year later) it’s my biggest fear, embarrassment and regret. The reason why I regret it so much is, from how paranoid all of it made me, how it changed whom I was when I was on the drugs. The biggest reason why it’s my biggest regret is due to myself being so stupid and thinking it’s the

“Incident” by Natasha Tretheway brings to life the horrors African Americans faced during the time the Ku Klux Klan was rampant in the United States. Fear and secretiveness was an everyday part of African American lives. They were unable to live like white Americans were due to the racism they faced. This poem, however, symbolizes the idea that life continues through the fear of it crumbling. The narrator is still alive to tell his or her story; therefore, this is evidence that life continues. Through the poem’s tone, metaphors used, and symbols expressed the poem portrays that fear can make life seem charred or obsolete, but in reality life propels through all seasons and obstacles it faces.