Poem Structure and Speaker
📌 The poem is a monologue delivered by a fisherman addressing a potential fish buyer, emphasizing the hardships of their profession.
❓ The title, "Do you know the ocean...", is a rhetorical question ending with an ellipsis, prompting the audience to deeply consider the sea's nature.
🔁 A recurring element is the repetition of the question "Do you know the sea, sir?" and the buyer's retort, "The fish is expensive," occurring every fifth line (lines 5, 10, 15, etc.).

Portrayal of the Ocean
🌊 Initially, the ocean is described as deceptively calm, appearing "flat and shiny," but it is inherently more dangerous than flame or fire.
🌪️ The poem illustrates the unpredictability of the sea, contrasting a gentle breeze with a "roaring wind" that necessitates a fight for survival hour after hour.
💀 When a storm hits, the ocean's danger is amplified, bringing darkness ("the black black wind") and proximity to death, referenced by the rhetorical question about where help will come from.

The Cost of Fishing and the Climax
😥 The fisherman details the severe consequences of the sea's power, including the ease of being swept overboard "like a feather" by a wave "high as a prison wall."
🥶 Fear experienced during storms is personified as something that "eats at your inside like a crab" and presents a paradox: being "cold as ice and hot as hell fire."
💔 The poem climaxes with the story of Mrs. Matia, whose three sons drowned, highlighting the severe and often fatal risk fishermen face, where family members frequently work together on the same boats.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ The central message is that the price of fish is not expensive relative to the life-threatening dangers and sacrifices fishermen endure daily.
➡️ The buyer's complaint about the price demonstrates a lack of understanding of the constant peril involved in bringing seafood to the market.
➡️ The consistent progression moves from deceptive calm to violent storm, and ultimately to death and bereavement, underlining the high human cost of this livelihood.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 20, 2025, 14:02 UTC