What Is The Mood Of The Poem The Fish

The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop takes place on a rusty rented boat in which the narrator is using for a fishing trip. The fisherman initially acts as if it is any other catch, she accurately describes the fish throughout the poem and begins to appreciate and respect it more as the poem goes on. The fish is intensely described, every little piece of detail of the fish was named. She becomes filled with victory because of the catch and describes everything being rainbow. The fisherman realizes how much the fish fought for his life and her respect grew even more. Instead of capturing the fish, she releases it because of her realization of the fish’s battles. At the end of the poem, the oil on the old boat creates a rainbow, and everything is then

He didn’t fight at all”. We learn later on that the fish has been through a multitude of battles with previous fisherman and at this point, the fish has given up on fighting anymore. At the beginning, the mood of the poem seems very dull and depressing. Bishop chooses a depressing choice of words to convey an image of the worn down fish. At the initial catch, the fish is described having a “grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely”. This reveals that the fish is unattractive and hard to look at. The narrator describes the fish being “infested with tiny white sea-lice” and having skin that “hangs in strips like ancient wallpaper”. This causes the reader to get a sense of how old and tattered the fish truly is. The fish has “gills fresh and crisp with blood” and creates a frightening image of the fish’s past battles with the fisherman. Bishop beings by using dreary colors in the first half of the poem, describing the fish’s skin as “brown with a pattern of darker brown”, “coarse white flesh”, and “dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entails”. The specific word choice and depressing mood that Bishop creates in the first half of the poem is used to reveal the disgusting nature of the fish and sets up the transition from Bishop’s initial thought of the fish to her realization of the fish’s battles and her newfound respect for the

The fisherman notices that the fish has “five old pieces of fish-line” with their hooks attached in the fish’s mouth. Bishop uses the simile “like medals with their ribbons” to describe the threads of string attached to the fish’s mouth. This specific word choice allows the reader to get an insight on how the fisherman feels about the fish’s past troubles. She thinks of them as medals for the battles that the fish won against the previous fisherman. The moment where the “oil had spread a rainbow” is the moment that the fisherman realized that the fish doesn’t deserve to be captured. The fish fought it’s fight and now it deserves to live the rest of its life as a free