The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop
The Fish by Elizabeth BishopThe Fish by Elizabeth Bishop: Gone Fishin’ “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop is saturated with vivid imagery andabundant description, which help the reader visualize the action. Bishop’s useof imagery, narration, and tone allow the reader to visualize the fish andcreate a bond with him, a bond in which the reader has a great deal ofadmiration for the fish’s plight. The mental pictures created are, in fact, sobrilliant that the reader believes incident actually happened to a real person,thus building respect from the reader to the fish. Initially the reader is bombarded with an intense image of the fish; heis “tremendous,” “battered,” “venerable,” and “homely.” The reader issympathetic with the fish’s situation, and can relate because everyone has beenfishing. Next, Bishop compares the fish to familiar household objects: “here andthere / his brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper, / and itspattern of darker brown / was like wallpaper;” she uses two similes with commonobjects to create sympathy for the captive. Bishop then goes on to clearlyillustrate what she means by “wallpaper”: “shapes like full-blown roses /stained and lost through age.” She uses another simile here paired withdescriptive phrases, and these effectively depict a personal image of the fish.She uses the familiar “wallpaper” comparison because it is something thereaders can relate to their own lives. Also the “ancient wallpaper” analogy canrefer to the fish’s age. Although faded and aged he withstood the test of time,like the wallp aper. Bishop uses highly descriptive words like “speckled” and”infested” to create an even clearer mental picture. The word “terrible” isused to describe oxygen, and this is ironic because oxygen is usually beneficial,but in the case of the fish it is detrimental. The use of “terrible” allowsthe reader to visualize the fish gasping for breaths and fighting against the”terrible oxygen,” permitting us to see the fish’s predicament on his level.The word frightening does essentially the same thing in the next phrase, “thefrightening gills.” It creates a negative image of something (gills) usuallyconsidered favorable, producing an intense visual with minimal words. Anothersimile is used to help the reader picture the fish’s struggle: “coarse whiteflesh packed in like feathers.” This wording intensifies the reader’s initialview of the fish, and creates a visual, again, on the reader’s level. Bishop next relates to the fish on a personal basis: “I looked into hiseyes… …I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw.” Through thisintense diction, a tone of respect is produced. It is as if, for a moment, thepoet descended to the fish’s level, and the...
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