22 pages • 44 minutes read
The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant
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Literary Devices
Humor and Pathos
The story frequently juxtaposes emotional intensity and humor. The narrator describes his youthful crush on Sheila in terms that evoke the romantic poets: “my longing was like a madness” (Paragraph 3). But when he finally approaches Sheila, we get a mocking, deflating image: He’s “as bashful and frightened as a unicorn” (Paragraph 4).
Just as his date with Sheila begins, the narrator’s ever-present fishing tackle snags a giant largemouth bass; the ensuing farcical antics humorously divide Sheila and the narrator, even as they ride together in the canoe. When she wonders about the noise of the reel, he lies that it’s bats; as the narrator struggles in the stern with the big fish, in the bow, Sheila faces forward, droning on about her life, oblivious to the slapstick battle just behind her. Back and forth the story swings between her idle chitchat and his furtive struggle with the powerful animal.
Longing and comic predicament finally collide: “I could see the lithe, easy shape of her figure. I could see the way her hair curled down off her shoulders […] Behind me, I could feel the strain of the bass” (Paragraph 53). The narrator makes a snap decision to free the fish, ending the comedy as the story concludes on the wistful mood with which it began, as the narrator belatedly apologizes to “Poor Sheila!” and declares, “I never made the same mistake again” (Paragraph 60).
Action, Conflict, and Pacing
The story’s energy of action is propulsive. After slow and deliberate exposition that describes a young boy’s yearning heart and his attempts to impress the girl of his dreams, the action accelerates with the push of comedy when the narrator and Sheila begin their canoe trip toward the nearby town. A sudden tug on the narrator’s fishing gear by a giant bass pitches his energies into a frantic attempt to resolve his humorous predicament while keeping the situation from Sheila’s knowledge. Though the struggle with the creature grows more energetic and slapstick, it reaches a comedy-free climax when the narrator makes the heart-rending decision to set the bass free. Thus, the plot’s action is driven by comedic conflict. The low-energy beginning and ending of the story have an ethereal, even poignant feel, while the high-energy canoe scene in the middle is driven by humor.
Tone and Mood
The prevailing tone of the story, despite its humorous elements, is sad, wry, and knowing: The narrator looks back on his foolishly sincere teenage crush and manages a smile at the painful lessons learned. The local mood, meanwhile, shifts several times: aching with the narrator’s infatuation for Sheila, shifting to propulsive and driven when he prepares carefully for the canoe trip, becoming an antic and rollicking misadventure as the narrator struggles with the bass, and ending with the same wistful ache in which it began, as the narrator sums up the lessons he learned.
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