The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop
THE EXPLICATION ESSAY ON “THE FISH “BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The narrative poem titled “The Fish” by the author Elizabeth Bishop, is about a woman who went fishing on a boat that she rented and, after looking at the fish for a while in wonder, she decides to let the fish go. The woman goes through a series of stages in which at first she is detached from the fish, then she becomes intrigued by him, and then finally sympathetic towards him.
The poem begins with the catching of the fish then treating him as such. “I caught a tremendous fish / and held him beside the boat/half out of the water, with my hook/fast in the corner of his mouth.” Commercial attitudes are reflected in her narration about the fish. She begins describing the skin and other parts like ‘white flesh,’ ‘gills,’ ‘Bones,’ ‘lip,’ and ‘jaw.’ Reflecting on the commercial attitude, in her imagination, she skins the flesh of the fish for commercial benefit. Describing the fish in terms of its parts can be related to cutting the fish into parts that can be used for several different purpose. The narrator attempts to look into the fish’s eyes. Perhaps it is an attempt to identify the existence of human with the existence of the fish. She continues to stares at him and becomes aware of interdependent existence. This awareness is of the transistorizes of human domination over other animals their own benefit. Rust in the engine can be related to this awareness. Towards his head, she notices that different fishing lines are dangling from his lip. She refers to these threads as being “like medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering, / a five-haired beard of wisdom / trailing from his aching jaw”. The fish on the other hand behaves rather strangely; instead of trying to slip away and escape, it never fought back. , “He didn’t fight.”, “ He hadn’t fought at all”. Interpretation of this could be that it is a victim of humanity’s atrocity.
Finally, after a reflective and sensitive moment, it downs on the narrator that she is among those responsible for the sorry state of the fish. Ashamed by her actions, she experiences a change of heart. She then changes from being the common fisher to a humanly compassionate being. She identifies herself with the fish and is convinced that the life of the fish is much more important than her own personal victory. She decides to let the fish go.
The narrator using adjectives makes the reader relate more closely with the events unfolding and the characters in the poem and also uses adjectives to emphasize the main points in the mental imagery that the narrator wishes the readers to see. Predominately, the narrator uses this tool to describe representations of objects negatively. This portrays a feeling of sympathy for the fish because these objects seem to represent the pain felt by the fish. For example, in lines 22-23 of the poem, we experience the narrator’s sense of sympathy for the fish when she speaks of his gills breathing in / the terrible oxygen. The reader can relate with the fish breathing oxygen more closely to a human experience of drowning.
The other tool used by the narrator is personification. Personification the art of giving human characteristics to that which is not human. Examples are: “a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw” the personification here is the use of the word “beard.” It helps in creating a mental picture of what is described; “like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering.” In this second example the personification is when the narrator talks about the ribbons. Only humans get ribbons for things they do. Fish do not wear ribbons.
Reference
Sharma, Kedar N. “The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop: Summary and Critical Analysis.” Bachelor and Master, 9 Nov. 2013, bachelor and master.com/British and American poetry/ the-fish.html.