Socratic Seminar Persuasive Essay

Tyler B

English 9

Miss Transue

7 December 2011

A Fish or a Girl?

            Many people like to choose one thing over another just because it seems to be better than that one other thing, but in “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant”, the narrator chose to try and be with Sheila Mant than the bass he had caught that day. In the end he decided to go with her, but I think he was wrong to do that because in the story Sheila was mean to him and since the narrator loves fishing more than anything else, he should’ve have stuck with fishing instead of trying to impress her throughout the story. I think the narrator was wrong to choose Sheila Mant over the bass.

            Sheila was mean to the narrator in various ways, but the narrator didn’t seem to realize it much because he was trying to catch a fish at the same exact time. When they went out in the narrator’s canoe, Sheila didn’t care about the narrator because she would always talk about herself because she thinks that she deserves a bunch of attention. While she tells him about what she likes and hates, the narrator catches a bass. It was the biggest one he has ever caught and when he has it on the line, he tells her that he loves fishing and she tells him “I hate fishing, it so boring and stupid”. At the beginning of the story, when the narrator asks Sheila Mant to go with him on the boat ride she was hesitant to even go with him because she knew that he was younger than her and that he liked her, but she didn’t want to be mean so she said yes.

            Another reason why I think the narrator was wrong to choose the girl over the bass is because the narrator is really good at fishing and has done it his whole life. The narrator is always practicing and trying to get better at fishing even though he is good at it, he tries to get better. When he catches the bass it happens to be the biggest one he has ever caught, but he is trying to impress a girl so he keeps it hidden in the water. While he is trying to hide it, Sheila says that fishing is boring and stupid. The bad thing in all this is that he loves fishing and he is with a girl he likes and that hates fishing so he has to choose, the girl or the bass? In the end he chooses to go with the girl and he lets the bass go.

            Some people say that the narrator made the right choice, going with the girl instead of keeping the bass because having a relationship is more important than catching a fish. If you love to do something, I don’t think you should stop it just because you want to impress someone else or because you like something that they don’t. If that person doesn’t like it, then maybe they shouldn’t be around you. In the end of the story the narrator tried to be nice to Sheila and impress her so that she would like him, but she left him after the canoe ride because she had already had a boyfriend waiting for her to get there. In the end I think the narrator should’ve chose the bass over the girl.

            That’s why I think the story should have ended differently and the narrator should have chosen the bass over the girl. Sheila didn’t even like the narrator, she just wanted to be able to meet her boyfriend so she could be with him and that was a way to meet him so she decided to use the narrator. The narrator wanted to be with Sheila because he liked her so he tried to impress her, but he found out she doesn’t like fishing and that made everything change since he has done it his whole life and he wasn’t about to give it up just because some girl didn’t like what he did for fun.