"His brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper...with shapes like full-blown roses" (10-13).
"He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice" (16-19).
"And then i saw that from his lower lip- if you could call it a lip -grim, wet, and weaponlike" (47-50).
After a few reads, and the exercises on symbols and imagery, I noticed how now and then she associated the fish as a "he" (he, his, him). The imagery and descriptions, (agreeing with Michael C.) sometimes grew long, and although at times clever, often redundant. But the point of the symbols and the imagery was to give the fish a sense of human life, it was being personified, to give the reader an easier time to relate with and decide his/her meaning of the entire poem.
Bishop's constant condescending and immediate appreciation gave me a sense of pity, respect and at then, acceptance. I think the fish symbolizes something or someone that was once lost. I.e. a significant other, after an unfortunate break up, one battles with their love and admiration over the person and equally hating and loathing, but at the end, we all sit and reminisce at the times shared and we grow and learn. Slowly letting them go.
...but that's just what I think...
An interesting read--certainly the fish is about a relationship with the "other," if not a human other. I agree about the use of personification--it's certainly a way into the fish...But you mention that she is "condescending" toward the fish--is it condescension, or a (perhaps failed) attempt at objectivity?
ReplyDeletePoems 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 don’t know how it feels to be a fish catch on a hook. This poem, to me, shows an outlook on nature that I have always been accustomed to me. I see nature as a source of life and energy and when you being to see the beauty of it you began to grow an emotional beyond with it. 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. She is however well known for her use of imagery and her ability to convey the narrator’s emotions to the reader.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
In the poem Bishop uses the simile to give the reader a clearer picture of the situation at hand. The simile is an ideal literary tool to use when the author is trying to convey a sensory description of an object or idea. When describing the fish, she starts to image the colors on the fish and the beauty of the fish eyes. How the fish have no motion of life in his eyes. She compares the fish skin to the ancient wallpaper in her house. She describes the pieces of broken fishing line hanging from the fish’s mouth as medals with their ribbons that are frayed and wavering in the wind. She use many a similar ways ex press how she have pride and honor for the fish. She decided to let the fish go because she began to grow a connection to the fish.