The Fish Figurative Language

The poem titled “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop is about a person that catches a well-sought after fish and realizes the fish is still something worth fighting for. The diction used in this poem would be informal because they talk in a relaxed conversational language. The speaker does use a ton of figurative language which is what made this one of Elizabeth Bishop's most famous poems. There is some positive connotation in the speaker's words mainly used to describe the relationship the speaker has with the fish. The speaker also uses middle diction in this poem to emphasize the time era in which this poem was written, which was in 2011. They used contemporary English to set a tone that shows the speaker's attitude in this poem is calm and collected,

and also that their voice is average but educated. The speaker uses this tone to create a warm and humbling atmosphere in which they can relate to the reader. The speaker in this poem portrayed this by the words used to describe the fish because they wanted the reader to look at the fish in a different perspective. This poem is about the importance of seeing through outer appearances and respecting things that are often taken for granted.
This poem is very unique in its use of figurative language, imagery especially. The speaker describes even the smallest details in the most meticulous way. This poem takes off with the speaker catching a fish off the side of the boat. In line one they announce that the fish is tremendous, which suggest that the fish is unlike any other, at least in size anyways. The author does use some form of repetition in lines 5 and 6, “He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all” (Bishop 5-6), and this was to symbolize that this isn't a normal response of fish to not fight back. In lines 10 through 40, the speaker pays close attention to the fish’ characteristics, “his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper” (10-1). This classifies as a simile but depicts what the fish's skin looked like. Words like “hung” (10), “stained” (15), “speckled” (16), and “infested” (18) create a vivid representation of what this fish actually looks like so that the reader gives a new meaning to the relationship with the fish. Using descriptive words like that also draws the reader into the story. Beginning in line 35, the speaker describes the fish’s eyes as “irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass” (35-9). They use this metaphor to describe how the fish’s eyes may have related to how the fish is tired of fighting through the scars of past, unsuccessful fishermen. The way the speaker describes the fish in the first 40 lines of the poem, there is an obvious bond forming between the speaker and the fish. By saying “I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and I saw that from his lower lip - if you call it a lip grim, wet, weapon like” (45-50), the speaker describes that the relationship they have created with this fish now has gotten even more intense and the speaker realizes how the fish was once rare and unimaginable. The poem is filled mostly with similes and metaphors, but there are a few lines of personification. Beginning in line 63, the speaker says “a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw” (63-4), which personifies the fishing line hanging from the jaw of the fish. There are also signs of assonance and some internal slant rhyme when the speaker uses the words “caught/water/fought” (1-6), and “backed/packed/scratched” (37-40). Towards the end of the poem, the speaker introduces the “rented boat” (67), “pool of bilge” (68), “rusted engine” (70), “sun-cracked thwarts” (72), and “oarlocks on their strings” (73). What this suggest is that maybe the speaker still finds beauty and respect in things that once glimmered and shined. In the very last line, the speaker releases the fish to show that the victory mentioned in line 66 wasn’t due to the act of catching the fish, but for seeing through the outer appearance of the fish and giving it value.
The structure of this poem is overall simple.

The speaker describes the fish, and then the relationship they create with the fish. It appears that there is only one overall theme which means that the entire poem supports a common moral. The speaker immediately identifies their role as first person, although without a gender. The rhetoric is pretty straightforward and when the speaker talks about the relationship they create with the fish we know it's strictly about the relationship. It could be slightly persuasive at the beginning when the speaker begins to pity the fish because that might would imply that the speaker is an empathetic human. The positive connotation used all throughout the poem suggest that the speaker respects this fish. This poem doesn’t contain subtle hints to lead the reader to believe that there are any deeper themes. The syntax used in this poem is not convoluted, but it is skillfully created because it is full of imagery. Being as the poem was written in 2011, the modern language correlates with the syntax. The sentences are mostly compound because they are full of descriptive words that are either describing the fish or the way the speaker felt towards the fish. The word choice used in this poem indicates that our speaker was an average educated person. Since this is considered a free verse poem, there aren't many visual patterns in this poem besides the fact that there is only one stanza. The only thing that might catch the reader's eye is that the breaks in the lines could pass as the speaker's thought process. For example in lines 42 through 44, the speaker says “to return my start. - It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light” (42-4). The way the breaks and dashes are positioned some may seem like they are interrupting a thought and then coming back to it. There is not an official rhyme scheme and most of the sentences follow a normal subject verb agreement. Overall this poem combines a skillfully crafted diction, syntax

and creative story line to emphasize the vivid elements Elizabeth Bishop used to create this poem.