The Fish Figurative Language

The poem titled “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop is about a person that catches a well-sought after fish and realizes the fish is still something worth fighting for. The diction used in this poem would be informal because they talk in a relaxed conversational language. The speaker does use a ton of figurative language which is what made this one of Elizabeth Bishop's most famous poems. There is some positive connotation in the speaker's words mainly used to describe the relationship the speaker has with the fish. The speaker also uses middle diction in this poem to emphasize the time era in which this poem was written, which was in 2011. They used contemporary English to set a tone that shows the speaker's attitude in this poem is calm and collected,

The speaker describes the fish, and then the relationship they create with the fish. It appears that there is only one overall theme which means that the entire poem supports a common moral. The speaker immediately identifies their role as first person, although without a gender. The rhetoric is pretty straightforward and when the speaker talks about the relationship they create with the fish we know it's strictly about the relationship. It could be slightly persuasive at the beginning when the speaker begins to pity the fish because that might would imply that the speaker is an empathetic human. The positive connotation used all throughout the poem suggest that the speaker respects this fish. This poem doesn’t contain subtle hints to lead the reader to believe that there are any deeper themes. The syntax used in this poem is not convoluted, but it is skillfully created because it is full of imagery. Being as the poem was written in 2011, the modern language correlates with the syntax. The sentences are mostly compound because they are full of descriptive words that are either describing the fish or the way the speaker felt towards the fish. The word choice used in this poem indicates that our speaker was an average educated person. Since this is considered a free verse poem, there aren't many visual patterns in this poem besides the fact that there is only one stanza. The only thing that might catch the reader's eye is that the breaks in the lines could pass as the speaker's thought process. For example in lines 42 through 44, the speaker says “to return my start. - It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light” (42-4). The way the breaks and dashes are positioned some may seem like they are interrupting a thought and then coming back to it. There is not an official rhyme scheme and most of the sentences follow a normal subject verb agreement. Overall this poem combines a skillfully crafted diction, syntax