Ok So I have thought about this poem a bit deeper, and it seems like to me that ELizabeth Bishop is describing the beauty of the fish, and its existance, and how it is beautiful in a different way than we are as humans.
For example, when she found out that he has survived other hooks, she begins to feel respect and admiration for the fish, just like you would for a human being if you knew he was a survivor. She gives him the quality of a human being, which I think reveals to us that she is trying to put aside the fact that he is a fish, and see a deeper meaning in its existance.
She uses the word rosette, full blown roses, and peony as a symbol to the beauty of nature in its self. In the beginning of the poem though, she starts off telling us an ordinary experience of catching a fish, and then it seems to me as if she does what other ordinary fishermen do not do which is admire the fish, and connect with its existance and its beauty.
She also describes the fish in a ugly unattractive way, (when she compares its pealing and old skin to a wallpaper). But then she also seems to go deeper in its inner beauty of the fish, its survival, and its struggle to survive in a different environment, just as how we humans would. I think she sees the beauty in it, and therefore connects with the fish, and in the end lets him go because she begins to see rainbow filling the boat, beauty and freedom of nature I suppose. Not too sure, I may be wrong but that is what seemed to me, so let me know what you think of this.
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You're right about her attributing human value to the fish--though other images try to push away from that....
ReplyDeleteok so she wants the reader basically to look beyond the fish, and not see it as a fish but see it as a creature who needs to survive and who has survived through hardships, She wants the reader to respect the other creature through everything he has gone through, but regardless of the fish being old and neglected she looks at what he has really went through, like when she comments about the oxygen and the hook so everytime he has been caught, he has been cut from his own oxygen in his own life and world which is not easy. So she basically reveals to us that she respects the fish for more than what it is, and tries to show us how to look at this fish and respect it just as how we would respect an old hero. I dont know if i am any close to what it means.
ReplyDeleteAlso that; she wants to show that fish arent only there for the fishermen to catch them and thats it, because some people believe that other animals and other things exist to serve us in a way or another. Which is untrue and wrong, so she looks at the other side of the non-human creature. When she says the eyes of the fish shift away once she stares at him and compares that to a flower turning towards the sunlight, she is basically saying that the fish lives its life and does what nature allows it, which is not connect with the person and simply either try to try to survive or give up, and humans do the same thing, like fishermen, who catch the fish regardless of the fish's nature and not lookign at what they have caught, (young fish, old fish, etc) but Elizabeth has done what noone has as a poet observe the deeper side of what is on the surface (its purpose for humans and our survival)
ReplyDeleteI like how you described the way the girl looked at the fish on the outside but kind of zoomed in further in and saw inside of the fish, and the feelings it experienced in its past and in that moment.
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