The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop: A Shift in Her Perspective

The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop: A Shift in her Perspective

Fishing involves more than the physical action of capturing a live fish. For some people, it is relaxing to get on a boat and go to a quiet place to sit there for long periods of time to wait for the right fish to bite the bait. One can assume that the purpose of fishing is to capture as many fish as possible to take them home or sell them. After catching a fish it is inferred that such animal will die once it is out of water and transported to a new place. In The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop, the speaker narrates a different situation where the fish she catches does not follow this usual process as she decides to release it. The shift in her perspective occurs when she takes a look at the fish's lip. Based on the diction, tone, irony, allusion, and similes that she utilizes, one can say that the reason why the speaker changes her attitude is due to the realization of the fish's strong and persistent nature that awakens a sense of respect and humility within the speaker's world.

First, the speaker employs key words to describe the fish. This can be embodied in one word, diction. Diction is an art in literature that the writer use to define something in order to portray vivid characteristics of the poem-imaginary, sound, and meaning. It is of extreme relevance to use diction because based in the context it gives the poem a more profound melody. For instance, in The Fish, the speaker uses the word rainbow(75) in order to represent a collage of colors that she had been depicting since the beginning of the poem. Although rainbow is a common word in everyone's vocabulary, in this poem rainbow puts it all together. It represents victory,salvation, and realization of the beauty of the fish's battle scars(50-54). It is also immediately after the speaker see the rainbow that she decides ti let it go(76). This means that the rainbow plays a key role in a sense of bringing a magical and deeper understanding of why the fish was not fighting or resisting. The fish had endured different captures and

Montero 2

he was still alive. The fish was not scared of her, the fish knew better. It was as if the fish itself had made the beautiful rainbow appear over the nasty oil; combining the ugly and the pretty into something more magnificent.

Second, Bishop's tone changes throughout the poem. It goes from being instructive(describing her fishing experience) to developing a sense of admiration and sympathy towards the fish. Her initial attitude was a bit cold. She referred to the fish as something old with brown skin that looked like ancient wallpaper(8-11) but as she observed and examined the fish in more detailed she noticed his lower lip(49) and how it had “five old pieces of fish-line”(51), how indifferent the fish was to her examination of him as he refused to look at her in the