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the fish by bishop literary element
The Influence of Literature I will tell you what literature is
imagery in poem
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“The Fish” Poems to me are an expression of a person’s outlook on a particular scene or subject. By reading a poem a person can be enlightened and take an understanding of what they are actually reading. In “The Fish”, I personally was caught up in all the excitement because I know what it feels like to catch a really gigantic fish. This poem, to me, shows an outlook on nature that I have always been accustomed to. In writing poems there is a whole category of tools and techniques you can use to make the poem great instead of mediocre. In this poem, to me imagery plays a very big role. When you read the poem the imagery lets you not only think about what you are reading but also it lets you actually see it in your head. Another tool used in the poem is personification. It can help the author do so much more explaining than the usual. Personification in this poem is just as important as the use of imagery is. Also, the ideas/themes of this poem are very crucial as well to make it a very good poem. When Elizabeth Bishop put all of these tools together she made “The Fish” what it is today, a great poem. The use of imagery in this poem had to be used in just the right way. If it was not used properly then the poem could have lost all meaning and understanding, making the poem pretty much useless. When Bishop uses lines like this the imagery is shown very well. “Here and there his brown skin hung in strips l...
of images and details about the fish, making it into not only a poem with a purpose, but
Elizabeth Bishop's use of imagery and diction in "The Fish" is meant to support the themes of observation and the deceptive nature of surface appearance. Throughout the course of the poem these themes lead the narrator to the important realization that aging (as represented by the fish) is not a negative process, and allows for a reverie for all life. Imagery and diction are the cornerstone methods implemented by Bishop in the symbolic nature of this poem.
“Salmon” by Tom Dawe and “Pike” by Ted Hughes are two free verse poems that both have the theme of fish. In their poems both of the poets use strong imagery to describe the two different fish and both poems also have the motif of someone watching a fish. The final element that stands out in both poems is the use of structure and the way that they are different. Although both poems are similar with some of the elements they differ in ways, like how the two poets describe the fishes in their own unique way and the different levels of simplicity in there writings where one is much more complex than the other.
Imagery is defined as language that appeals to one or more of the senses. It allows the writer to convey a deeper message while entertaining the reader at the same time. Often it is used to help the readers connect what the edification is to their own real life experiences. Imagery can be used to intrigue sight, smell, feel, taste, or hearing. Writing is considered not well written without imagery because people enjoy the feeling of a personal connection with the story. The Authors that are featured in Prentice Hall Literature Poetry Collection 4 do an exceptional job of involving imagery in their writings.
... to understand one another. Furthermore, while both poets encase aspects of the fish into their poems, Bishop’s interpretation of the fish places it at a distance because her block of text loaded with descriptions is how she sees the fish, which gives the image that she just feels pity for the fish but doesn’t really feel the need to delve deeper in understanding the essence of the fish. By contrast, Oliver’s interpretation of the fish embodies its’ essence because she does not rely on its appearance to understand it but rather when she consumes the fish, its’ spiritual aura merges within herself. Oliver captures the soul of the fish within her poetic writing as evidenced by the constant alliteration with “f” letter words including, “first fish”, “flailed” , “flesh”, “fall”, “feed”, and “feverish”, which give the image that the poem is alive and is the fish.
Along with the imagery we get from the title, there is a lot of imagery within this poem. Let us start with the first three lines:
...ictures for the reader. The similar use of personification in “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker and the use of diction and imagery in “Nighttime Fires” by Regina Barreca support how the use of different poetic devices aid in imagery. The contrasting tones of “Song” by John Donne and “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims show how even though the poems have opposite tones of each other, that doesn’t mean the amount of imagery changes.
I believe that the structure of this poem allows for the speaker to tell a narrative which further allows him to convey his point. The use of enjambment emphasizes this idea as well as provides a sense of flow throughout the entirety of a poem, giving it the look and feel of reading a story. Overall, I believe this piece is very simplistic when it comes to poetic devices, due to the fact that it is written as a prose poem, this piece lacks many of the common poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and metaphors. However, the tone, symbolism, allusion and imagery presented in the poem, give way to an extremely deep and complicated
Imagery is words that appeal to our senses, it then allows us to create a vivid image or sense of idea. A good example of imagery in the poem ‘Then And Now’ can be found in line 8 ‘factory belches smoke’. These words create a clear picture of a factory violently emitting smoke and describes what a modern city would have . Hyperbole was also used in the poem. It can be found in the 3rd line. ‘But dreams are shattered by rushing car’. This line is exaggerating that her dreams are destroyed by the European colonisation. Another strong poetic device repeatedly used in the poem is personification. An example of personification is the phrase ‘...hissing train..’. This is a figure of speech in which the train was given human characteristics as hissing. Theses examples/words help us to create images in our heads, which then helps to interpret the poem they way Oodgeroo sees
Imagery is a key part of any poem or literary piece and creates an illustration in the mind of the reader by using descriptive and vivid language. Olds creates a vibrant mental picture of the couple’s surroundings, “the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood/ the
Imagery is shown to be mostly what can be touched. For instance “Pinned down by pain and moaning for release” (Vincent Millay 10). These words substantiate an example of auditory imagery also, where Edna shows our readers the desperation of her love life and the suffering one may go through but still not trade love for freedom. Another example of words is “slumber”, “thickened lung”, and “fractured bone”. Those words are very disturbing not sentimental at all. They showed the pain that she felt in the bad days of her relationship. In the second stanza she then shows that love cannot heal you physically, but emotionally love can cause people to commit suicide. As you can see without imagery we wouldn’t be able to feel the way Edna felt
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:
As said, an appealing aspect of Bishop’s poetry is that her poetry links with her life. Bishop has some connection to each poem, and this adds credibility to her poetry. We see that it is real and serves some worth; Bishop does not simply write on some aspect issue – it is something that means a lot to her. In The Fish we see can view Bishop as the fish herself. The fish is affected (physically) by previous turmoil and Bishop talks of “meals with their ribbons/ frayed and wavering,” Likewise Bishop was affected by previous problems herself, from her childhood where she lost her mother to illness and her father through death, which she suffered with for her whole life. Does Bishop here hope for a new lease of life, like she gives to the fish at the end of the poem, wh...
Another rhetorical strategy incorporated in the poem is imagery. There are many types of images that are in this poem. For example, the story that the young girl shares with the boy about drowning the cat is full of images for the reader to see:
bird as the metaphor of the poem to get the message of the poem across