The Fish

Elizabeth Bishop is a highly admired writer. In her poem, “The Fish,” a reader can enjoy the very specific analysis of a fish. While it may seem confusing, there are certainly multiple ways of possibly interpreting this poem. The poem is a continuous, with no stanzas, description of a fish and also the relationship between her and the fish. While it may be gruesome and overly-descriptive, it leaves many questions for the reader. In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “The Fish” she uses similes, adjectives, and imagery to show the significance of inner beauty in people. During the poem, a reader can notice lots of smiles in order to describe the fish. Throughout the poem Bishop vividly describes the fish to the reader, and similes help make the poem
Furthermore, a reader could also connect this graphic description of the lip to the theme because the fish has been caught in the past. A reader could also think that from this description it has been abused and hurt in the past as well, making the fish vulnerable and weak. Additionally, Bishop could have been trying to convey that as humans, we must remain strong no matter how severe the damage may be to us from the past. Secondly, the writer uses lots of adjectives to describe the fish very explicitly. Describing the fish plays a critical role in the way that Bishop tries to portray her point, or theme, of the poem so she must choose her words carefully. A perfect example of this is when she is describing the outside of the fish, “He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested, with tiny white sea-lice.” Through this description of the fish a reader gets a very close look at what the fish appears to be to Bishop. By writing that the fish was, “speckled,” and “infested,” supports the theme by suggesting that the fish was taken advantage of and used in the past. Possibly making the fish appear ugly and used, but still terrific because it is alive. It is apparent that Bishop is admiring the fish because in the first line she writes that the fish was “tremendous.” Through this, the theme of inner beauty is very apparent because the fish
Bishop writes, “He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely.” This gives a very vivid and clear description of how the fish reacted to being caught. With understanding this, a reader could possibly interpret that the fish was again, vulnerable and weak, because it didn’t attempt to fight back being caught. The theme is conveyed here because it seems as though sometimes people who do not have a lot of self-confidence tend to give up when being faced with challenges because they feel that they are not good enough. Because the fish did not attempt to fight back while being caught, shows that the fish, or person, could have lacked self-confidence, hope, and determination. Bishop is suggesting through this example that the inner beauty and feelings of a person ultimately make who they are in