"The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant" and "Catch the Moon" Theme Comparison Essay

Love has a variety of effects on people. When it is pure it can change people for the better and heal their pain. “ Catch the Moon” was written by a Puerto Rican American woman and is set in the Caribbean Hispanic Barrio. “ The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant was written by a Caucasian man from New Hampshire and is set in a New England summer home waterfront community. In “Catch the Moon” and “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” The main character a teenage boy, believes himself to be in love with a beautiful girl he just met. However, In “Catch the Moon,” Luis feelings for Naomi redeem him by inspiring to return to acts of goodness. In “The Bass, The River and Sheila Mant,” The fourteen year old boy realizes that “loving” one for their looks is shallow and futile.

In the story “The bass, the River and Sheila Mant” the main character is a boy who loves to fish. The boy falls in love with a girl named Sheila Mant but she hates fishing. He decided to take Sheila out of a canoe, on a date, and ends up catching a bass. He decides to let the bass go and later regrets his actions. In the story the main character says “There would be other Sheila Mants in my life, other fish, and though I came close once or twice, it was the these secrets, hiding tuggings in the night that claimed me, and I never made the same mistake again”. The character changes because he learns not to give up something he loves for a girl who is ungrateful. The theme of this story is that a person shouldn’t have to change who they are for another person to like them, even if they are in love.

The main character of “Catch the Moon” is a boy named Luis who lives in the Hispanic Barrio. He is dealing with the loss of his mother and the pain he had been hiding for years. He went to jail for breaking into a house, and was told by the court that he owed free labor to his father who worked in a car junk yard. He meets a girl, who’s family owns the funeral service that helped with his mother’s funeral, who he likes. She is missing a hubcap for her old Volkswagen buggie and Luis makes it his duty to find it. While Luis looks for the hubcap he starts to think about his mother, and how much he never realized how much he missed her. He found the hubcap for the girl and, started to change when he realized how the girl made him think about his mother. He broke down crying when he thought about his mother and how much he never grieved for her and missed her. Some people change when they are unable to grieve for someone they had lost, sometimes they look for attention by doing things that are wrong, and showing love and grief for someone they lost can be difficult, but it is always important to let go and grieve.

Love can control, and change people. It can change their behaviors and their action. It can heal, and hurt. Never change in the loss of someone you love and never loose something you love for some else. Many people change in the presence of others, and at the loss of someone close to them. Many people hide their grief, and their love for other things, but it is always good to some your love for something and someone you love. Hiding feelings for something or someone can be a mistake that can affect people in the long run. Grief and acceptance is something many people should learn and know.