Sheila Mant Analysis

Imagery of the bass, the river, and Sheila Mant

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

Also that he needs to open and realize how girls really are, especially Sheila Mant. Also, that the bass was way more important than her. Another quote, that uses imagery that also stood out to me was, “I may have danced once or twice with her, but all I really remember is her coming over to me once the music was done to explain that she would be going home in Eric Castwell’s Corvette.”(41) This just how much more the bass was worth it. Everyone makes mistakes and as in the other quote I wrote down the narrator did say “I never made that mistake again.” The good thing is that narrator learned something out of this experience. This quote is also supposed to be imagined with the small of popcorn, although the narrator does not remember much, what he does remember is not very best image. Imagery takes a very important part in this story because the readers can feel or imagine how the narrator felt. In this case, this