“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after”-Henry David Thoreau. The unnamed protagonist in the story “The Sea Devil” possesses many different character traits that enable him to survive. However, the three characteristics that are the most significant are clever, determined, and strong. In the next three paragraphs I will explain to why this is so.
There are various examples within the story that verify the man is clever. The first one being when the man had already fallen overboard and is coming up with how much time he has until he is done for. “He had been under the water perhaps fifteen seconds now, and something in his brain told him quite calmly that he could last another forty or…show more content… It is indicated that the man has strength when he is able to tug on the net, with the help of a stake, and cut loose from it. “He drove both his heels into the mud, and he clutched the slimy grass with his bleeding hand and he waited for the tension to come again… He felt himself sliding slowly, and then faster, and suddenly the ray made a great leap forward, and the rope burned around the base of the stake...He kicked himself backward with his remaining strength, and the rope parted and he was free”(p.40). This justifies that the unnamed protagonist is strong because he is able to hold his own against a manta ray, whose average length is 25 ft and can weight up to 3,000. An additional reason to why the man is strong is when he was able to keep himself stable while the ray continued to move at a high velocity. “...The sea devil jumped again. And once more the man was able to get his feet on the bottom and his head above water…”(p.37). This is agreeable evidence that the fisherman is strong because he would have already been dragged down under water if he wasn’t able to stand his ground. And to be able to hold your own, especially against such a powerful beast, requires much strength. These examples prove that the man is a strong