The Cycle Of Domestic Abuse In The Fish By Marianne Moore

In “The Fish” by Marianne Moore the narrator begins to describe a seemingly peaceful and beautiful ocean scene, with a fish gliding through dark water. Throughout the poem beauty is expressed through sea creatures and colors, while pain is illustrated through marks, scratches, dents, and death. This beauty and violence along with color symbolism demonstrates domestic abuse and the vicious cycle. This exploration of a seemingly ending cycle is the basis of “The Fish” and strives to illustrate the cycle of domestic abuse. The structure of the poem is quite interesting and highlights certain phrases and words to contribute to answering the poem's central idea. For example, the first line of each of the 8 stanzas has one syllable, which is incredibly

For example, the first word of the poem “wade”(1) represents people and not fish, as a fish does not stay still. The people who stay still are victims of domestic abuse as many choose not to leave their partners either out of fear, financial reasons, and a million of other reasons. Some victims do not view their situation as abuse or feel as though they deserve it and this also contributes to why someone might not want to leave their abusive relationship. Another example of word choice revealing domestic violence is “opening and shutting itself like an injured fan.”(6-7), this conveys the real and serious injuries a victim may succumb to. The injured fan can also represent victims trying to hide and conceal their injuries and bruises, because if a fan is spinning fast enough sometimes you can’t tell that it's a little broken. So if a person goes about their day in a certain way or does things to try and hide their injuries and bruises one might not be able to tell that someone is being abused. Looking further into the poem at another example of a hidden message of hidden abuse is “cannot hide there for the submerged”(9-10). Domestic abuse is abuse that occurs within a home and or living situation so using cannot hide represents how victims often can not escape the violence and abuse. Using the word submerged conveys how a victim can not keep their

The line “pink rice-grains”(21-22) illustrates small droplets of blood on a surface, small enough where it would be hard to notice as they are as small as grains of rice but still there. This line conveys how an abuser might try to hide their own actions to the world by being careful and methodical with how they hurt their victim. Also in this stanza the line “crabs like green lilies”(23-24) represents how a victim of domestic abuse may also get love from their abuser at a cost. Green lilies typically represent growth, life, success, and financial prosperity. A victim of abuse may not be able to live and survive on their own so they might have more financial prosperity if they stay in their current abusive