The Fishs Image

A detailed Summary of The Fishs Image

With fewer than fifty published poems Elizabeth Bishop is not one of the most prominent poets of our time. She is however well known for her use of imagery and her ability to convey the narrator's emotions to the reader. In her vividly visual poem "The Fish", the reader is exposed to a story wherein the use of language not only draws the reader into the story but causes the images to transcend the written work. In the poem, Bishop makes use of numerous literary devices such as similes, adjectives, and descriptive language. All of these devices culminate in the reader experiencing a precise and detailed mental image of the poem's setting and happenings.

One of the most prevalent of the literary tools used in this poem is the simile. Repeatedly throughout the poem Bishop uses the simile to give the reader a clearer picture of the situation at hand. The simile is an ideal literary tool to use when the author is trying to convey a sensory description of an object or idea. When describing the fish's physical appearance in lines 9-15 she compares the fish's skin to "ancient wallpaper"; this immediately gives the reader an impression of the age and outward appearance of the fish. Later in the poem when in line

Much of the language in the poem does not necessarily fall within the constraints of a specific literary devise. However the language the author chooses to use is very descriptive of the situations and events that occur. From the language in the poem we draw what is quite possibly the most important part of the whole experience, the tone. From lines 5-6 we begin to hear the true tone, we get the impression that possibly the fish does not fight because he is just too old and too tired to continue to try. Later the narrator spends lines 34-42 describing the fish's eyes and comparing them to their own. This is a very powerful part of the poem because people relate looking into another person or creature's eyes as a way of connecting with that being. Anytime an author can relate a sense of connection to a subject in the story they succeed in bringing the work closer to our own experiences and therefore connecting us with the story. As the poem nears the end the narrator begins to become obsessed with their surroundings. The odd part of this is the fact that the subject, which is mostly old weathered boat parts and dirty oil stained water, does not reflect the mood as we would expect. The mood is actually that of revelry in the moment, and toward the end we are given the sense that the

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Approximate Word count = 869
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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