20 pages • 40 minutes read
Elizabeth BishopThe Fish
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Natural World
Elizabeth Bishop was a close observer of the world around her, and her poetry reflects this, if it is not defined by it. Bishop was drawn to the natural world, which was conducive to solitude, contemplation, and quiet revelation. As with two of her poetic influences, Hopkins and Moore, Bishop felt compelled to describe the natural world with an almost scientific precision. This attempt to render in words the complexities of nature led to poems layered with startling images and striking connections between seemingly disparate things.
In Bishop’s poem “The Fish,” as in other of her poems such as “The Moose” and “The Armadillo,” there is a sudden intersection of the human and animal worlds, which pulls the speaker out of the everydayness of her life and propels her into another realm. This jarring meeting with an animal life, drawn up from the depths of the water, reveals a glimpse into a world that seems somehow more unified than fractured. The speaker’s connection to the deep, though the fish, reveals a deeper connection to life as well. In these poems, as in “The Fish,” the speaker experiences the thrill that comes from feeling connected to something larger than the self.
In “The Fish,” as with Bishop’s other poems that focus on the natural world, there is the initial sense of an intrusion, whether the intrusion be the human into the animal world, or the animal suddenly thrust into the human realm. This sense of strangers’ crossed paths adds to the feeling of displacement in the poems. This feeling, at first prickly and uncomfortable, gives way to a feeling of wonder and quiet triumph in the poems’ speakers. In “The Fish,” the reader witnesses this play out with the speaker, who does not necessarily share their pity for the old, “homely” (Line 9) fish, but at first only remarks on his passivity, his seeming vulnerability, his lice infestation, his barnacled appearance, and so on. Only when confronting the eyes of the fish does that uncomfortable feeling shift to admiration (Line 45), and a deeper understanding of the full existence of the animal come into view. With the revelation of this animal’s persistent fight for life, and nature’s larger drive to live, the speaker reaches a sublime understanding of, and new respect for the natural world, ultimately releasing nature back to itself.
Catch and Release
“The Fish” is bookended by two simple actions, catching a fish and releasing a fish. The significance of those actions is borne out by the poem itself, which turns the common act of fishing into a much more profound moment for the speaker. Both acts carry significant weight in the poem, which Bishop builds on and explores with each brief line of the poem. The speaker undergoes a transformation between these actions, leading to the merciful act of letting the fish go back into the deep.
Catching the fish is initially described as a triumph for the speaker; the fish is “tremendous” (Line 1), and the power of the fisher themselves is augmented through the description of the vulnerable, old fish who “hadn’t fought at all” (Line 6). Through the speaker’s eyes, the reader sees both the inside and outside of the fish—the one who has caught the fish seems to possess it inside and out, naming and describing even unseen parts of the large catch. However, this all-powerful observer’s confidence is shaken when the fish’s eyes do not return their gaze, and instead “shifted a little” (Line 41) looking toward the light. This refusal of the observer leads the speaker to spot the five hooks and fish-line that have “grown firmly in his mouth” (Line 55), revealing the fish’s will to survive.
The release of the fish comes with the speaker’s moment of revelation, who suddenly feels an understanding and familiarity with the fish. The release functions as an acknowledgement and respect for the fish’s ability to survive not only nature, but the threat of humanity as well. The speaker’s desire to catch and keep the fish has been undermined by a sudden respect for the animal’s existence and its universal fight to stay alive. Indeed, the speaker releases nature back to nature, relinquishing all power over the fish. This final gesture is rooted in the change of heart, where the speaker realizes that nature is far more resilient and powerful that humans, but that humans too can share in that resiliency.
Description and Defamiliarization
Literary figures and painters of the Modernist movement believed that to truly see something and gain an understanding of its essence, one must first defamiliarize it. In “The Fish,” readers witness Bishop doing just that. As soon as the speaker pulls the fish out of the water, she is confronted with an otherness that is only magnified by her word choice and imagery. Surprising analogies are made between the fish and a dilapidated house, as when its skin is described as hanging like “ancient wallpaper” (Lines 9-13) that seems to have a faded rose pattern, as well as barnacles and “rosettes of lime” (Line 15).Next, the interior of the fish is described a landscape of delicate materials, from feathers (Line 26) to “a big peony” (Line 31). Finally, her description eventually returns to the metaphor of the battle-scarred warrior, wearing “medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering” (Lines 61-62), painting the fish as a wise old man.
There is the repulsion factor, as well; Bishop often uses grotesque terms to describe the fish and its body: “infested / with tiny white sea-lice” (Lines 18-19), gills “crisp with blood” (Line 25), and “coarse white flesh / packed in like feathers” (Lines 27-28). It is through inventorying the fish’s strange and particular parts, however, and striving to capture them in a way that helps the reader participate in what seems like a confrontation, that ultimately leads to the sense of connection felt by the poem’s end. The “otherness” of the fish eventually leads to an understanding of sameness, and a human respect for non-human life.
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By Elizabeth Bishop
