The Compleat Angler Analysis

o Page 49 “…the hooked fish, the female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her..”

“The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” by W. D. Wetherell, is an initiation story in which the symbols of fishing and Sheila Mant illustrate how the character of the narrator transforms from youth and innocence to sophistication and maturity. At age fourteen, it is typical for a boy such as the narrator to be beginning this transformation. Being innocent and naïve in a sense, the fourteen year old narrator gets an enormous crush on a seventeen year old girl named Sheila Mant and comes to believe she is what he loves most in life. For him, Sheila is a symbol of the maturity and sophistication he will eventually become a

Man is a product of two worlds— the one he inhabits and the one he strives to create. The fisherman in Lawrence Sargent Hall’s “The Ledge” is caught somewhere between the two. A calloused, hardworking man who lives in a cold corner of the world, he is a father, a husband, and a man. Hall uses the perception of others, the actions of the protagonist, and direct narration to ultimately expose the real, imperfect humanity of the fisherman.

journalist. These two very different brothers are brought together through the years by a mutual love of fly fishing instilled in them by their unyielding father. As Norman watches his brother's seemingly charmed life dissolve under the influences of gambling and alcohol, the art of fly fishing becomes a touching metaphor for the love their father was unable to express in any other way.

He refers multiple times to fishing terms that the general audience may not be knowledgeable of such as “spinner” (“Once” para. 1), “hellgrammite” (“Once” para. 5), and “bass” (“Once” para. 5). These terms not only classify White as a fisherman but also suggest the importance or impact that fishing and the lake have on his life. By using logos in his writing, he gains credibility with his intended audience.

The short story “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod is narrated by a man who comes from a fishing family. His mother’s side of the family has forever lived and worked by the sea and continues this tradition. The narrator’s father always wanted to be an academic, but worked on the boat to support his family. Through this passage it is evident that the parents’ characters clash in many aspects of their lives and are in constant conflict. MacLeod demonstrates this through the use of repetition, the contrast in other unrelated ideas, and through information that is withheld.

“He did not truly feel good because the pain from the cord across his back had almost passed pain and into dullness that he mistrusted.”(74) Once both the fish and Santiago had reached the breaking point of conflict the story seemed to slow down in time to exemplify the adverse conditions that both characters were suffering from. The old man proves himself worthy of personal suffering with the cuts and scars on his hands and back along with all of the pulling and slipping the cords had upon his fragile body. Hemmingway shows in a big way how an out of proportioned conflict with an old fisherman and an 18 foot long marlin helps to magnify the significance of Santiago searching for his rebirth to manhood. With constant abstraction describing the fish and the sea in relation to brotherhood create interesting questions for Santiago to ponder. His rationalization for his fishing is that he was born to do it. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (103) Hemmingway proves that this fish represents all of Santiago’s built up tension to total the size of a gigantic marlin that is perceived as devastating but not unconquerable. The old man’s hopes and aspirations can overcome the adversity of the marlin’s size, along with the conditions of the old, hungry, and exhausted fisherman. Through outright suffering Santiago achieves a goal above his previous manhood by combating pain and

Even after he kills a fish in a seemingly careless fashion, in his sleep “[his] mind lit up by the…flickering of the dying [fish]” seems to haunt him with resentment (Martel 186). This subconscious image is a product of Pi’s internal conflict with his new methods of survival. Therefore, Pi is unable to completely eliminate his feelings while trying to survive due to his torn thoughts between morality and necessity.

Paul and Norman grew up in the same household, with the same values, but from their fishing styles, to their jobs and educations, to their social lives, their differences amount to those of night and day. While boys, young in age and mindsets, Paul and Norman learned to fish from Mr. Maclean. This factor had vast significance because, in this preacher's family, a clear line between fishing and religion had no presence. Mr. Maclean taught his sons the conventional four-count.

“The Boat” written by Alistair MacLeod tells a story about a father’s life and how he lived as a fisherman. The narrator is an adult man who looks back on his life of when his father was still living because even though he got a university education, he now wants the life his father had. He expresses how his father always wanted him to become something bigger and better then what he became. The author, Alistair MacLeod, used many different writing techniques within this short story. The symbolism of “The Boat” expresses inevitability through the little hobbies the father/husband does through his boring routine life, obligation through the father/husband’s commitment as a fisherman to provide for his family, and imprisonment through his

The golden carp symbolizes the pagan religion which ties into christianity. At the river, Cico is talking to Antonio and exclaims, “When the gods had turned the people into carp, the one kind god who loved the people

Page 158: “No life, honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well-governed angler!”

Filmmaker Justin Simm’s short film, HAND.LINE.COD. takes place in Eastern Canada. The short film takes a closer look at the 500-year-old traditional hand fishing method used by the locals. HAND.LINE.COD. appeals to many rhetorical techniques including pathos, ethos, and logos with the film taking place in ruggedly beautiful Newfoundland, the local fishers go on about their daily lives using their intricate ways of catching one fish at a time using only their hands and a line. This film is highly effective in its use of pathos to create an emotional connection with the audience while using ethos and logos to reinforce and build the credibility of the film. Centuries of fishing in Fogo island

Stubb decides to give Old Fleece a lecture on religion after waking him to complain about his overcooked whale steak. Not only does Stubb ask Fleece to "preach" to the sharks who are making a considerable din eating the dead whale chained to the ship, but he compares Fleece's inability to "correctly" cook a whale steak to Fleece's un-Christian ways. This passage is an excellent example of the theme of the hypocrisy of religion in Moby Dick.

In the novella, The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is an unlucky fisherman who has not caught anything in 84 days.  Yet he sets out alone on the 85th day to try again.  For three days he struggles with a large marlin which he finally kills; but, despite his best efforts, he loses the fish to repeated shark attacks.