Morals of ode about the death of a favorite cat (favorite)It is very difficult to understand what a writer means when he is writing a poem because you have to enter a state of mind that you think the writer was in when he composed the poem. In the Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tank of Golden Fish, Thomas Gray uses a cat and a fish to teach a moral. In the Ode about the death of a favorite cat, drowned in a tank of golden fish, the setting was set in the first stanza. The poem gave you the idea that it took place in a very beautiful house which had a large porcelain vase, which contained water, and it also alludes to the fact that in this vase there were flowers and fish. It describes beautiful flowers tinged with blue and the fish as an angel like the Beta fish, which had a love coat of gold with a touch of royal purple. When Gray described a fluffy black and white tabby cat with dark green eyes. The cat's name is Selima and she is perched on top of the vase watching the fish slide into the water. Selima intended to eat the fish as soon as she could catch them. So she slowly reached out her paw to grab one of the fish, her first attempt failed so she thought again about how she can reach them. Eventually, she falls and attempts to get out eight times while calling for help from a forgiving soul. No one seems to hear her and she drowns in the water where the fish were swimming. Thomas Gray asks two questions: “What female heart can gold despise? Which cat is opposed to fish? (lines 23 and 24) the meaning of these questions is that some gold is not meant for women and that these fish were not meant to be eaten by Selima. Also the "female" could reflect the cat since cats are generalized as feminine and "gold" referring to the fish. Gray also states "An evil fate sat and smiled" (line 28), which leads me to believe that fate was laughing at the cat and not helping him because fate knew what was going to happen . In line twenty-nine "The slippery edge, his feet were deceived" is an illusion that the cat thinks he has balance and yet he does not cause him to fall into the fishbowl..