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1. Izquierdo 1
Magela Izquierdo
Professor Marcia, Jose
ENC1102
21 September 2015
Elizabeth Bishop The Fish (analysis of the poem)
American Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was a lonely, quiet, and nervous girl. She
started experimenting with literature in high school, but really, her talent was revealed only at
the University, when Marianne Moore became her creative mentor. Loneliness has also
remained the pervasive motive of her lyrics. The present paper is devoted to the analysis of
the poem The Fish, one of the most famous and interesting poems of Bishop. The poem is
attractive from the point of view of techniques used by the poet and themes that are hidden in
the lines of the poem.
The Fish is an extremely compact reflective lyric, consisting of seventy-six free verse
lines and is told from the first person narrator’s experience. The narrator tells about one of the
events in her life, when a “tremendous” fish, was caught. Despite the fish impressed the
narrator by its size, she subsequently lets it go. The narrator’s silent and self-transforming
reaction to the fish, depicted mainly with the use of imagery, contains the major theme of the
poem and underlies the narrator’s outward actions. The beginning of the poem tells about the
fish, when it is caught and the narrator tells about the awareness that the fish would never
fight her. She holds the fish “half out of water” in order the fish to exist briefly in a liminal
area half in. In this place it becomes possible to examine the fish closely. Her primary
observations are conscientiously objective. Any thoughts that the narrator may have are
wisely hidden and carefully depicted through descriptive imagery, with the help of which
negative aspects are masked. The fish is depicted as “battered and venerable/ and homely”
and “infested/ with tiny white sea-lice” (lines 15-16).

2. Izquierdo 2
Though a neat and cautious poet, Bishop does not often write formal stuff, but a
sestina and a villanelle are often presented in her collected poems, and sometimes she
chooses a rhyme scheme to work with. Speaking about the poem In The Fish Bishop uses
free verse, in other words, the poem does not have a steady rhyme and meter. The lines of the
poem are of almost equal in length, and are comparatively short. With the help of the
evenness of the lines, the reader gets an impression of control and their short length is used to
measure out the vigilant description in the poem. The poem is one stanza.
The speaker of the poem is a fisherperson, and the poet does not tell exactly the
gender, though the readers may think it is a woman. . Man or woman, we can't really tell,
though we keep calling the speaker "her," since the poet is a woman, judging by the amount
of small details found in the poem. We may even understand that this woman is not
impulsive, but calm and not decisive.
While reading the poem, there are 24 times of “and” that has its meaning in the poem.
It helps keep the flow going and smooth. For example:
"He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down." (lines 16-21).
Alliteration is one of the most favorite techniques, used by the poets, which they
implement through the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words, which are
close to each other. Alliteration is used to create some music in poems, but as for Bishop, she
is subtle about it. It can sound somewhat silly when, when it is used too many times, but
Bishop curbs it, creating some kind of aural unity without blasting out readers’ eardrums.

3. Izquierdo 3
The tone of the poem is changing. For instance, at the beginning is proud and
admiring:
‘I caught a tremendous fish’ (lines 1-2)
Sometimes the tone becomes full of triumph: ‘victory filled up the little rented boat’ (lines 1-
2) and humorous and weird: ‘Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient
wallpaper’ (lines 16-17)
The images are paid attention in the poem, and it contains fourteen imaginative
images. About one third of the total amount of images is imaginative, while two thirds are
factual. The images contain comparisons, but the central image is the poet, standing with the
fish.
The first group contains thirteen physical images of the fish:
‘tremendous fish…(lines 1-2)
The next group contains factual images of the boat:
‘ beside the boat…(lines 1-2)
the little rented boat…
The third group are factual images of fishing:
‘ my hook fast in a corner of his mouth…(lines 13-14)

4. Izquierdo 4
Work Cited
Hanson, Matthew. Elizabeth Bishop's Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012.
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