“The Fish,” written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1946, is perhaps most known for its incredible use of imagery, but this analysis does not merely focus on imagery. Instead, it is based on a quote by Mark Doty from his essay “A Tremendous Fish.” In it he says, “‘The Fish’” is a carefully rendered model of an engaged mind at work” (Doty). After reading this statement, it causes one to reflect more in-depth about how the poem was written, and not just about what its literal meaning lays out. In “The Fish,” Bishop’s utilization of certain similes, imagery in the last few lines, narrative poem style, and use of punctuation allows the audience to transport into the life of the fish; therefore, allowing them to understand Bishop’s ideas on freedom and wisdom.
In “The Fish,” Bishop uses four similes, in particular, that permit the audience to understand the feelings of freedom and wisdom. The first simile compares the fish’s skin, using “like,” to “ancient wallpaper / …/ stained and lost through age” (Bishop, Lines 13-5). By Bishop using this simile, the audience can undoubtedly recognize that the fish is being portrayed as elderly. As in countless cases before, the idea of elderly is considered to be a symbol or reference of wisdom. Thus, this depiction of the fish being old produces the idea that the fish, in part, represents wisdom. The second and third similes Bishop use states, “I thought of the coarse white flesh / packed like feathers” (Bishop, LL 27-8), and “The pink swim-bladder / like a big peony” ( LL 32-3). What do these similes have to do with the ideas of freedom and wisdom? Absolutely nothing. The significance of these similes, according to Doty, is that Bishop is able to enter back-and-forth into the body of the fis...
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... ways in which Bishop used particular similes, imagery in the last few lines, a narrative poem style, and punctuation has allowed her audience to transport into the life of the fish; thus, enabling the audience to understand her ideas of freedom and wisdom.
Works Cited
Bishop, Elizabeth. “The Fish.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. ED. Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. 8th ed. Vol. E. New York: Norton, 2012. 73-5. Print
Doty, Mark. “A Tremendous Fish.” New England Review 31.2 (2010): 58+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 4th AP ed. New Jersey: Pearson, 2008. 528-35. Print.
Taylor, Marilyn L. “Tell Them a Story: A Memorable Narrative Poem Features Three Key Elements: Plot, Voice, and Point of View.” The Writer. 125.4 (2012): 17-18. EBSCO Host. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Writing with Readings and Handbook. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2013. 52-57. Print.
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.
William Faulkner overwhelms his audience with the visual perceptions that the characters experience, making the reader feel utterly attached to nature and using imagery how a human out of despair can make accusations. "If I jump off the porch I will be where the fish was, and it all cut up into a not-fish now. I can hear the bed and her face and them and I can...
Wallace, Daniel. Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions. North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Throughout the first half of the poem, Bishop describes the fish as an inanimate object, as reflected in her comparisons, which uses objects to describe the fish as shown when she says, “Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper…”. (9-11) She chooses a wallpaper to describe the skin of the fish in order to accurately portray its battered and worn state; her decision to compare the fish to an inorganic ...
In this poem called “Creatures” by the author Billy Collins there is a literary device called a metaphor when the reader is reading this poem. A metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things without using the words like or as. In lines one (1) through...
In The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister tells how a beautiful, extraordinary, yet, self-centered blue fish learns that being beautiful isn’t the key to happiness. The blue fish came to find this lesson when he lost his friends. Pfister takes a simple ocean setting and explores the consequences of an individual’s arrogance toward their peers, the process of humbling of oneself, and the tremendous reward one feels when they learn to share. The story achieves these morals by the author’s use of detailed imager and also, the influence of minor characters on the antihero in order to reveal to the audience the true thematic message; selfish actions bring true happiness.
The first element to analyze when looking at “The Fish” is figurative language. The reader is drawn to this element because of its heavy emphasis throughout the poem. Elizabeth Bishop profusely uses similes with the intention of heightening the sensation of fishing. She writes:
Bishop’s use of imagism in “One Art” helps the reader to comprehend the ability of the speaker to move on from lost items such as a mother’s watch or loved houses.
Piper’s use of imagery in this way gives the opportunity for the reader to experience “first hand” the power of words, and inspires the reader to be free from the fear of writing.
Bishop's initial description of the fish is meant to further develop this theme by presenting the reader with a fish that is "battered," "venerable," and "homely." Bishop compares the fish to "ancient wallpaper." Even without the word ancient preceding it, the general conception of wallpaper is something that fades into the background. One is not supposed to take much notice of it. To add to this impartial picture, the fish is brown, the signature color of dullness. "Shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age" (lines 14-15) further cement the image of something with little time left. Fully bloomed roses conjure the image of a flower whose petals are at t...
In addition to the use of colorful diction, Hardy employs detailed imagery. The phrase “Dim moon-eyed fishes near Gaze at the guilded gear” depicts fishes looking at the sunk Titanic and wondering what “this vaingloriousness” was doing under the sea. He also mentions in the third stanza how the “jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind” were all lost and covered by darkness. Using these detailed images, Hardy is portraying the contrasts of before the ship sunk and after.
Roberts, Edgar V., Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th Compact Edition, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2008, print
The opening paragraph of the story emphasizes the limitations of the individual’s vision of nature. From the beginning, the four characters in the dingy do not know “the colors of the sky,” but all of them know “the colors of the sea.” This opening strongly suggests the symbolic situations in which average peo...
It is clear that Bishop’s “The Unbeliever” is heavily influenced by her poetic idol Moore because it contains elements are inconsistent with Bishop’s work as a whole. History shows that Elizabeth Bishop was not a strict modernist poet, yet in this sample of her early work you can see her imploring strategies more consistent with Moore’s own unique style. The habit of following a strict structure and the habit of carefully sculpting her poems are two of Moore’s distinctive mannerisms. While the shape of “The Unbeliever” does serve a specific purpose, it is interesting to note that this is an uncommon tactic for Bishop. Not only does Moore heavily influence Bishop’s work “The Unbeliever”, but it is clear that the poem is also specifically impacted by Moore’s poem “The Mind is an Enchanting Thing”. Beyond following a strict rigid structure and rhyme scheme, Elizabeth Bishop goes one step further and borrows an image from Moore’s poem. While it could be mere coincidence that both poems use the image of a bird, the way that Bishop writes the gull to “blindly [seat] himself astride” (Bishop, 24), represents a direct allusion to the way Moore’s kiwi walks along the ground as if it was “blind” (Moore, 124).