Have you ever done something superficial and regretted it? The narrator of this story has done exactly that. He gave up his passion for someone he had superficial feelings for. In “The Bass, The River and Sheila Mant” by W.D. Wetherell, the narrator later had to make a decision to either choose a shallow feeling for someone or his lifelong passion for fishing. This choice that the narrator made from superficial values led to his regret.
In the beginning of the short story, the narrator illustrated a superficial value towards Sheila Mant. He spent most of his time fishing, but the “only thing better than a largemouth bass was Sheila.”(1) The narrator loved to fish whenever he could, it was his passion. He also liked to watch her when she was …show more content…
While canoeing down the river the narrator caught “the biggest bass [he] had ever hooked,”(36) when he caught the bass he thought “Sheila Mant must not know.”(36) Since this was his passion he should have started to reel the fish in, but he didn’t because he didn’t want to look stupid in front of her. He couldn't do this because earlier in the story Sheila said that fishing was dumb. He wanted to reel the fish in while “not making any motion that might alert Sheila.”(40) He had a choice to make between Sheila and one of the biggest fish he has ever caught. He tried to do both but eventually, he had to cut the line, and his passion for fishing, all for Sheila Mant.
In the final section, the narrator regrets the choice that he made to cut the fishing line. Within a few weeks, the “spell she cast on [him] was gone.”(60) This displays that when she went home with someone else he no longer liked her. Which proves that shallow values toward someone usually don’t last very long. In the future, he said that he “never made that mistake again.”(60) He instantly regretted cutting the line with the fish on it for Sheila because it was his passion. He will never make the same mistake of choosing a superficial value over his true