The Fish Elizabeth Bishop [ ] Done by: Ohood AL-Jahdali Hanady Abo-Aseedah Nahlah Al-Qahtani Abeer AL-Serrehi

The fish I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of its mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. 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. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen — the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly — I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks

of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. 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. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. — It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip — if you could call it a lip — 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. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels — until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.

Elizabeth Bishop [ ] Relevant Background Elizabeth Bishop was born at Worcester, Massachusetts in America. She attended two different boarding schools. Then she went to university at Vassar College. Bishop didn’t have a normal family life. This affected Bishop badly during her childhood. Bishop remembers these battles in her poem ‘The Fish’. She was able to see the point of view of the old fish because both of them had faced battles in their lives. Her poetry describes her travels. Bishop liked to describe the scenery which surrounded her. Bishop's poetry has a lot of physical description. Bishop’s poetry shows a quick sense of humour.

The summary This seventy-six-line poem is an account of a fishing trip and how it affected Bishop. This is a memory poem. Bishop remembers catching and letting go a large fish. During the time she held on to the fish, Bishop formed a relationship in her mind with the fish. The fish did not show any awareness of Bishop. The poem is set in the sea off Florida.

In the first four lines, Bishop stated how she caught a huge fish and stared at it beside her boat. She didn’t haul the fish into her boat. Bishop noticed her hook in the fish’s mouth. In lines (5-6) Bishop noted that the fish was unusual because it did not resist: ‘he didn’t fight’. This fact should put a question into the reader’s mind: ‘Why did the fish surrender so tamely?’

From line (7-9) she described how the fish looked as he hung beside the boat: The fish was heavy, had injuries from previous fights, seemed holy [‘venerable’] to her and was not attractive to the eye [‘homely’]. Bishop described the fish’s skin or scales from line (10 -21) It was brown. It reminded Bishop of old wallpaper. The skin had peeled in places and it had a flowery pattern.

From lines (22-26) Bishop described the sharp gills of the fish. She stated that they were bloody. The air was ‘terrible’ to the fish. The air caused its gills to bleed. From lines (27-33) Bishop imagined what the inside of the fish would look like if she cut it up. From lines (34-44) Bishop described the eyes of the fish. She compares the fish’s eyes to her own. This comparison shows that she was beginning to see the fish in human terms.

From line (45-64) Bishop described the mouth of the fish, with old broken fish lines stuck in it. The fish looked cross or ‘sullen’. Its lip was like a weapon. On this lip, you could see ‘five old pieces of fish line’. Bishop described the different fish lines in detail. -She then compared these lines to war medals. These fish lines were like the beard of a wise old man. From line sixty-five until the end of the poem, Bishop went into a stare. She saw the oily colours on the bilge water of the boat as a rainbow. She felt proud.

Themes The poem shows that nature’s creatures are like humans in their ability to suffer and learn from that suffering a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw The word ‘wisdom’ shows that the fish has got wise from its struggles. It was like Bishop because it had grown tired of fighting for its life...

The theme of this poem is admiration for a survivor of life’s battles ‘Like medals with their ribbons Broken fish lines are not medals. But Bishop felt they were like war medals on this old fish...

The poet portrays her respect for a brave and honorable fish ‘I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat She couldn’t bring herself to complete the capture of the fish

The poet shows mercy in dealing with a powerless fish: ‘and held him beside the boat half out of water ’. The poet shows her ability to sympathies with nature: ‘While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen ’.

The images are mainly factual in this poem. The poem recalls accurately an event that happened in The poem refers to nearly thirty facts of Bishop’s fishing trip. The poem contains fourteen imaginative images About one third of the images are imaginative, two thirds are factual The imaginative images contain comparisons.. The central image is of the poet holding a fish beside her rented boat... Imagery

There are three main groups of factual images : The first group contains thirteen physical images of the fish: ‘tremendous fish… mouth… brown skin … The second group contains seven factual images of the boat: ‘ beside the boat… the little rented boat… The third group contains seven factual images of fishing: ‘ my hook fast in a corner of his mouth… five old pieces of fish-line ….

There are seven metaphors in the poem. A metaphor is a comparison image. A metaphor compares two different things in order to illustrate one of them.. **venerable …’ [A metaphor that compares a thing such as a fish to a holy person is called personification… **seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass…’ [In this metaphor, Bishop makes a strange comparison of the fish’s eyes to white glass that doesn’t let light through. She based this unclear metaphor on something she had seen in her own life.] **victory filled up the little rented boat…’ [This is an interesting metaphor. It compares a thought such as ‘victory’ to a physical material that fills a boat.].