ipl-logo

What Is The Mood Of The Poem The Fish

635 Words3 Pages

The poem that will be discussed is “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. This poem takes place out on the ocean or bay area on a rented boat. The poem is told by a woman, we think, that has caught a fish and is contemplating what she wants to do with it. The first two lines, along with the title, gets to the heart of the story and tells what it’s all about. She has just caught a huge fish and is admiring the catch. She is clearly excited about the haul, but a little puzzled; as she observed the fish, she noticed that he didn’t fight at all. The next few lines describe the appearance of the fish in detail. In lines (10-15), Bishop states “the brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes …show more content…

By doing this, Bishop encourages the reader to feel sympathy for the fish and see it as a victim. No longer excitement after the great haul, but pity and sorrow for the fish. She is surprised by her feelings for the fish and never expected to think twice about the appearance of any fish that she hooked. “I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass” (33-39). She is clearly mesmerized by this odd-looking fish and doesn’t know why. Further inspection shows that the fish has been on the end of a fishing rod multiple times on lines (49-54) “grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth.” Little does she realize her feelings towards the fish is changing

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Bass The River And Sheila Mant

325 Words | 2 Pages

One night in the short story “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” written by W.D. Wetherell, the narrator realized that doing what he loves and being who he truly is comes before any significant person in his life. The narrator was obsessed with both Sheila Mant and fishing so if he wasn’t thinking about one it would be the other. On the way down to their date, the narrator found out that Sheila Mant thought fishing was stupid and boring while he could not live without it. During the story, the narrator decided to let down a fishing line while Sheila was not paying attention and this is where he started to face a dilemma. He realized that “Sheila began talking about something else, but all my attention was taken up now with the fish” (Wetherell

Read More

Compare And Contrast The Bass The River And Sheila Mant

658 Words | 3 Pages

The Bass, the River and Sheila Mant In the beginning of the story the narrator falls in love with Sheila Mant. As the story develops he learns that she thinks fishing is dumb, since he loves fishing he is dumbfounded. As to not offput her cuts a bass off his line. That choice goes wrong as she leaves him for someone else.

Read More

Imagery In On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries

821 Words | 4 Pages

The Blue Estuaries pushed the speaker to write her own poetry after she received creative development from her reading. The imagery within the lines “I leaned closer to the print until I could almost feel the blue waters drawn into the tip of my pen” (27-30) reveal the inspiration of the book by showing how the speaker begins writing as an outcome of the artwork. In unison with lines 27-30, the speaker explains why that inspiration occurred in lines 31-36 through Alvarez’s uses of selection of detail, “I bore down on the page, the lake flowed out again… I lost my doubts, my girl’s voice, my coming late into this foreign alphabet.” Due to finding this set of poetry, the speaker is able to discover her “voice” through the writing that came on as a result of her reading. The selection of detail showing the speaker’s contemplation of stealing the poems in lines 38-44, “I wanted to own this moment… I had no money, no one was looking…

Read More

Are The Theories Of Abuse In Finding Fish By Antwone Quenton Fisher

1076 Words | 5 Pages

Finding Fish is a memoir written by Antwone Quenton Fisher. Fisher recounts several aspects of his life and incorporates them into a well written novel. Act one, Ward of the State describes several challenges Fisher faced during his childhood. One of those challenges was Mizz Pickett’s abuse towards him. One particular form of abuse he endured was physical abuse.

Read More

The Bass The River And Sheila Mant Summary

755 Words | 4 Pages

I am reading “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” by W.D Wetherell, and I am on page 5. This short story is about a boy, the narrator, that has a crush on a girl, Sheila Mant. He learns little details about her as he observes and analysis her. As the summer goes on, he finally makes the decision to ask her out on a date, soon he would face a challenge that, at that time, must have been the hardest decision he’s ever had to make. Being compelled to choose between getting the girl, or catching a bass that would have been considered the biggest catch.

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Jason Reynolds Speech

818 Words | 4 Pages

Reynolds uses this story to share a personal anecdote, telling how the fish could be seen “...flipping and flopping and flapping, inflating, deflating, dying, only to be met by mortified and confused faces.” By using this alliteration, Reynolds is trying to evoke empathy from the graduates, wanting them to feel the sadness represented through his words. He uses alliteration to help his audience understand how the fish was moving, with the audience being able to imagine what it was like in that moment and how terrifying it was. By using alliteration, Reynolds demonstrates his overall message to the graduates how through the course of life, it is often easy for individuals to only think about themselves, not taking a look at others around them. Through taking a look at other’s situations and checking in on them, humans can learn to help those who are less fortunate.

Read More

Summary Of This Boy's Life By Tobias Wolff

454 Words | 2 Pages

“They were already dying. The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten. Long strips of it hung off their bodies, waving in the current”(75). This quotation intrigued me by the use of the fish as a symbolic meaning. It

Read More

The Sad Fisher Family In The Short Story 'Blood Knots'

564 Words | 3 Pages

In addition, the last way that the short story demonstrates grief is when the main character is fishing and she immediately gets the determination to catch the fish she is chasing,“It occurs to me if I fall, I will not have the strength to regain my footing”(36). The reader then gets the feeling that the main character is upset and irritated at the same time. The reader begins to think that it may be that she is a really good fisher and she does not want to let the fish go. The main character is imaging the fish as her father and if she lets the fish escape her, then she would not have the strength to hold herself together anymore. If she lets her father go then she knows that the wave of sorrow will finally hit her and he will finally be gone.

Read More

Poem Analysis: The Leaving By Brigit Pegeen Kelly

807 Words | 4 Pages

In the poem, the speaker lived on an orchard farm where work ethic had been developed and strengthened. The speaker has developed a strong work ethic that drives her to stay up all night picking peaches. This strong work ethic encourages the girl to complete her responsibilities. “and the pond was—I could see as I laid the last peach in the water—full of fish and eyes.” The fish in the pond represent how the unseen events can rupture a person’s success within time with people challenging and downplaying one’s hard work and success.

Read More

The Bass The River, And Sheila Mant

472 Words | 2 Pages

What seemed to be the biggest bass in the river, snagged on the line. There is no way the boy could let Sheila know of this. The rest of the night, the narrator maneuvers the boat perfectly and somehow manages to keep the fish on the line, without Sheila having any knowledge. They finally reach their destination and the boy is faced with a crippling decision. The boy has to either cut the line, letting the fish go, or risk having Sheila lose all interest in him by reeling in the fish.

Read More

Pathos And Ethos In David Foster Wallace's Commencement Speech

747 Words | 3 Pages

The young fish mentioned represent that the “most profound realities of life are the most difficult to see or talk about” (Fairhurst, 2001, p.xiii) demonstrating Wallace’s point that we must be continuously active in important aspects of life. At first glimpse this analogy seems to loosen the tension and start the speech on good terms but once coming back to this idea it is frightening that this is “a great and terrible truth”(Wallace 2007). Connecting back to the idea of being attentive if wanting a fulfilled life, this analogy goes perfectly as those who remain in the “default” (Wallace 2005) setting do not need to understand the message behind the analogy and can only see the human, but those who want to go forward will look closer at the function of the words and understand the

Read More

How Did Charles Bukowski Write A Smile To Remember Essay

814 Words | 4 Pages

The three examples that will be throughout this writing is how Bukowski uses the fish as a metaphor for the mother, how she wears a mask of smiles to hide her pain, and how the son recognizes the mother is not happy and is putting on a mask for him. In the poem Bukowski the boy says, “we had goldfish and they circled around and around.” The fish are trapped in a bowl and they can’t go anywhere other than in the bowl. They just swim and swim and do the same things.

Read More

The Fury Of Overshoes Analysis

878 Words | 4 Pages

The use of personification is common in children. Therefore, this use conveys a feeling that a child wrote the poem. In addition, the narrator reminds the fish the time, in which it could not swim. If the reader reads this sentence, he will not understand it since there is not a fish that cannot swim. Nevertheless, if the reader reads it as a metaphor, he will understand the meaning behind it.

Read More

Marlie Monologue

810 Words | 4 Pages

Silence Walking out into my relative's living room, the hushed laughter and conversation died away as my face came into view. Margie smiled, laying out my breakfast choices before retreating to the study, while Paul sat with his back towards me reading the newspaper. All that was heard was the clinking of my spoon and the occasional rustle of the newspaper, the tension quickly becoming so great that the walls might crack and the windows threatened to shatter. As the others woke from their sleep, the house became louder, filling with with the chaos and noise that always seems to follow my family. Still, my uncle sat, silent, preoccupied by today's biggest story.

Read More

The Cat In The Hat Analysis

1189 Words | 5 Pages

While a child may laugh at the humorous image, the image represents the external conflict of the danger to the Fish. The Cat, at this point in the story, is representative of the Freud’s Id, “the part of the personality that contains our primitive impulses” (NCTE). The Cat represents the child’s primitive impulse to play, or have fun, without self-control or thinking of the consequences that might follow. If the Cat continues with this balancing act and slips, the items may fall, causing the house to become a mess, but the dander to the Fish is more substantial. The Fish, who cannot defend

Read More

More about What Is The Mood Of The Poem The Fish

Related Topics

Open Document