The Sea Devil Questions

1. 1. The fisherman fishes at night because he likes being isolated from other people and he shows us this by telling the reader that, “he liked the loneliness and the labor of it.”
   2. Fishing at night leads to the conflict with the ray because the fisherman can’t see anything under the black glossy surface of the water, he further proves this by even saying to himself, “They were about eight feet apart, and they had the sluggish oily marks the presence of something big just below the surface.”To expand, he compares the water to resemble the opaque and black descriptions of oil.
   3. The fisherman likes to fish but not for food or wealth, he fishes for the pleasure. This is important because it really reflects the greed and desire of the fisherman. The fisherman even understands the error of his ways at the end of the story by throwing the mullet he caught at the start of the story back into the water: “The man reached down with his torn hand, picked up the muliet, let it go.” This is important because it shows how the fisherman has sympathized with the mullet and the protagonist is shown what it is like to be on the other end of the hook.

 

1. The three main points of foreshadowing are:
   1. At the start of the short story in the small print, it says, “Nighttime on a Florida bay. A lone man casts his net on still waters, unaware of a deadly danger lurking under just below the surface…” This foreshadows the oncoming anger to the protagonist which keeps the reader on is/her toes, not knowing when this danger will strike.
   2. When the fisherman is tying the rope around his arm, he makes a remark about it being like a noose: “He stood up, reached for the net, tightened the noose around his wrist.” This foreshadows how he will be restricted.
   3. When The fisherman sees the frightened sardines, it foreshadows the sea devil is near.
2. The complicating incident is when the fisherman refuses to go home even after he catches a mullet. One crisis is when the fisherman is being dragged through the water by the Sea Devil and he grabs onto the wooden pole, but the barnacles cut his and the pole breaks. The climax is when the fisherman makes one last attempt to save himself by using the barnacles to cut the rope. The resolution is when he throws the fish back into the water because of his new found knowledge.  The ending is a happy ending because the protagonist defeats the sea devil and he doesn’t die.
3. In the story, there is a constant war between the civilized world and the primitive world. The meaning of civilized is a place where it’s factors are more advanced. Primitive is more original and more simple. In our case, the civilized world is the world that humans have made with all the cities and tech, whereas the primitive world represents the wilderness and mother nature. The references to the causeway, plane, and the mans wife at home remind us how much humans have advanced and how humans have evolved mentally.
4. The man learns of the struggles that the mullet faces as he has sympathise for it. He has been dragged by the sea devil just as a fishing net drags a fish through the water. He releases the mullet because he knows how much pain the mullet goes through and how the fish is not even being used to fullest
5. Descriptive Language:
   1. He caught it just above the surface, six or eight inches below the high-water mark. He felt the razor-sharp barnacles bite into his hand  collapse under the pressure, drive their tiny slime-covered shell splinters deep into his flesh.
   2. To the man’s left were the tangled roots of a mangrove swamp; to his right,  the open waters of the bay. Most of it was fairly shallow, but there were channels eight feet deep. The man could not see the old dock, but he knew where it was. He pulled the paddle quietly through the water, and the phostphorances glowed and died.
   3. Then the sea exploded in his face. In a frenzy of spray, a great horned thing shot like a huge bat out of the water. The man saw the mesh off his net etched against the mottled blackness of lts body and he knew, in the split second in which thought was still possible, that those twin swirls had been made not by two mullets, but by the wing tips the giant ray of the Gulf Coast, Manta birostris, also known as clam cracker, devilray, sea devil.

 

Vocabulary:

1. Sullen: pathetic
2. Weltering: tossing around
3. Elemental: simple
4. Sinewy: muscular
5. Hoisted: lift something/someone up
6. Phosphorescence: producing light
7. Cordage: ropes and cables and cords
8. Exhilaration: immense excitement
9. Atavistic: ancient
10. centrifugal : going away from the center
11. Gauntly:grim
12. Impeding: delay
13. Tenaciously: in control
14. Respite: a break
15. Equilibrium: balance
16. Imminent: soon to come