Analysis Of The Bass The River And Sheila Mant

In everyone’s life, there comes a time where you have to a make a choice and the decision you make could haunt you for the rest of your life. In, “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant”, by W.D. Wetherell, the narrator does just that. The narrator, a teenage boy, has a crush on Shelia Mant, an older girl, and asks her on a date. On the way, the narrator finds out that Sheila thinks fishing is dumb, so he hides the fact that he has his fishing rod with a bass caught on the line. He must choose between Sheila and the bass, and ends up choosing Sheila over the bass, which is a mistake he regrets later. A careful analysis of, “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant”, reveals the external conflict of the narrator and furthermore exhibits the main points of a quintessential storyline: the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
To begin with, the beginning of every storyline is the exposition. Exposition is a written tool used to establish background details about settings, characters, events, conflicts etc. to the spectators or readers. The exposition in, “The Bass, The River, and Sheila …show more content…
The climax of, “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant”, happens between lines one hundred seventy-nine and one hundred ninety-five. The narrator must now make a choice between two longings: the biggest bass he’s ever hooked and the lovely, suave, and sophisticated Shelia Mant. The bass becomes exhausted and this leaves the narrator with a dilemma: reel in the bass and relinquish any hope for him and Sheila or release the bass and remain with Sheila. As the narrator nears the shore, he knows he is running out of time to decide. He genuinely contemplates grabbing the rod and reeling the bass in. As the narrator reaches he pauses, glimpsing at Sheila, then grabs his penknife and cuts the bass loose. He feels sick to his stomach as he watches the bend of the rod