Questions
- The man fishes at night because he likes how it’s hard to see what you’re catching and how it’s so different than everything is quiet and lonely outside. This leads to the conflict with the stingray because when he catches it and gets pulled overboard, no one can see him because it’s dark outside and he is, therefore, more likely to die. The thing that is significant is that he knows how dangerous fishing at night is, but he still does it because it probably relaxes him.
- 1) When the author said, “he looked closely to make sure no stingray was hidden in the mesh.”
2) “In front of him, the bay stretched dark and silent, one of the countless lagoons that border the coast where Florida thrusts its great green thumb deep into the tropics.” We know that it was very dark at night and therefore hard for anyone to see him.
3) When he slipped the knot over his wrists, we know that if he did that there would be a greater chance that he would get pulled in the water.
3. The complicating incident is when the man wasn’t going to cast anything until he saw two or three mullets together. A single crisis was when the man realized that he had caught a sea devil instead of some mullets. The climax is when the ray swam quickly and he decided to cut the rope, as his plan worked out in the end. The resolution is when man decided to let the mullet go and he would never go casting at night alone. The ending is a happy ending because he was saved and realized that it’s harder than he thought.
4. The civilized world is where everyone is living and everything’s modern and developed and the primitive world is where it’s only the natural aspects of earth and nature. The conflicted against the civilized world and primitive world is that the man against the ray and the darkness of the primitive world. The planes were to show that we can float through the air to travel the world and how the human knowledge has expanded and the lights near the causeway is to help with everything that is hard to do in the dark. Now the man’s wife that had been sitting in her house is to show that mankind stays protected, warm, and entertained during the night.
- 5. At the end of the story, the man learns how it feels to be the thing that is trapped. The man had decided to release the mullet because the ray taught the man a lesson of how it felt to be caught up, as the man felt sorry for the mullet.
6. Personification – “the good, rough, honest wood”
Simile – “a great horned thing shot like a huge bat of the water”
Metaphor- “Down to the southward, the lights of a causeway made a yellow necklace across the sky.”
Vocabulary
Sullen- bad-tempered and sulky; gloomy
Weltering- move in a turbulent fashion
Elemental- primary or basic
Sinewy- primary or basic
Hoisted- raise (something) by means of ropes and pulleys
Phosphorescence- light emitted by a substance without combustion or perceptible heat
Cordage- cords or ropes, especially in a ship’s rigging
Exhilaration- a feeling of excitement, happiness, or elation
Atavistic- relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral
Centrifugal- moving or tending to move away from a center
Gauntly- extremely thin and bony; haggard and drawn, as from great hunger, weariness, or torture; emaciated
Impeding- delay or prevent (someone or something) by obstructing them; hinder
Tenaciously- with a firm hold of something; closely
Respite- a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant
Equilibrium- a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced
Imminent- about to happen