Preview

The Fish poem review

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1474 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Fish poem review
Conflict is known for disagreements, fights, and wars. For most people, the greatest conflicts are the ones within themselves. This type of conflict is called internal. Internal conflict is experienced within a person and his or herself; whether it’s a struggle to make the right decision, or the need to accept change around you. Elizabeth Bishop shows this type of conflict in one of her popular poems “The Fish”. In the poem, a fisher experiences a battle between his or her victory of catching a fish and their admiration, respect, and guilt later gained for this fish. This leaves the fisher stuck with making the right decision and that decision is should he or she free the fish or not. A battle within yourself can result in a completely different outcome than what you expected. For the fisher in Bishop’s poem, their day out fishing turned into a more complicated situation than expected, which changed the outcome for both the fish and the fisher that day. Bishop started the poem off with this statement “I caught a tremendous fish” (34). Just from the way Bishop choose to start this poem off we can get a feel of what the fishers initial thoughts were when they caught this fish. I believe that the character enjoys fishing and takes pride in the activity. This statement shows the readers that catching this big fish was an accomplishment for the fisher. From this I can concluded that this fisher intentions where to catch a fish and maybe return home with it to brag. I definitely do not believe their intentions where to set this fish free or make an emotional connection with a fish. However, this what happens to the fisher in this poem.
Martin Bidney made a statement about the emotional connections that was made in this poem “empathy for an adequate love object is the liberating answer” (506). How did this connection develop? I believe this developed, because the character gives human qualities to this fish. The fisher studies their catch, while holding it half out

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The story portrays a story of a fisherman who has the rare opportunity to meet an amazing creature. This is why he describes the fish as “venerable”, “homely”, and “battered”. He also stated that the fish did not fight at all; which does not become significant until near to the end of the poem when he realizes that this “tremendous” fish has finally submitted itself and given up.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    General Idea: A woman is pleading for Zhongzi not to take her virginity due to the warnings her various people have given her about the consequences of its loss.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The sorrowful, yet loving relationship between Quick and Fish is a realistic representation of human relationships and the pain they often bring. Both Quick and Fish bring despair into their relationship, conveyed…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On Lawrence case, she says “And I wished he would come back, my snake.” The speaker learns that snake is dangerous and disgusting from society, but she wants snake to come back after it leaves. Generally, many people get scare by snake and don’t want it, but the speaker wants it back and miss it right after it leaves. It can have two meanings, which are loneliness and his recklessness. She throws a rock to snake when snake look at her slowly and turn back. Then, she regrets because she throws a rock at the one who is thankful to come by her house. On bishop’s poem, the speaker says “until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.” She felt victory at first time she catches fish, but ironically now she feels victory or achievement by release the fish. The reason is she feels some kind of proud. For example, it could be similar as when you play a sport with other person and doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you feel satisfaction because both players played fairly and did their best. She highly respects fish’s hard times and just proud of herself by just catch tough fish. Lastly, she releases the fish and the rainbow from oil implies joy and…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Florida Key Poem

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A simile is used when they say “given broad strokes of murder by a pelican lumbering shoreward, then diving with a splash like a car wreck, rising cradling a fish in his bill, and so emerging triumphant”. Although there is only one simile in this poem I believe this symbolizes a lot in the poem and about life. This effectively says how the pelican was determined to get the fish as food for survival and how the fish was helpless as part of this feat. It’s kind of like a cycle of nature. It is like survival of the fittest. Everyone needs different things in order to survive. The message of this explains how we must always be determined, never give up and we will be triumphant or victorious in life as the pelican was. We all strive to emerge triumphant in everything we do, it means doing the best we can always. For example I want to do well at college so I can have a good career in the future. Athletes always strive to improve and win every week, especially at the professional level, when they know their living wage depends on it. This is an example of survival of the fittest cause in the workforce or in the NFL if you don’t succeed or aren’t determined to make it, you’ll get cut and this is what this poem is telling us is you have to always be determined to succeed in life and have goals, just like the pelican had a plan of attack for how he was going to kill or “murder” the fish in order to survive, we…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author uses conflict to show that the individual could not solve what he is trying to solve. In this poem, the character “wears” this anger, which had been passed down from generations, dating back to his early ancestors. But, near the end of the story the poet shows that his “grandfather suffered just as many broken windows, broken hearts, broken bones?” (Kay 42-44). This shows that the main character’s anger is from his ancestors,…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In ‘praise song for my mother’ Nichols has used imagery to portray the relationship. ‘you were the fishes red gill to me’. Nichols has used the word ‘gill’ to show that the persona needed the other person. A fish wouldn’t be able to survive without its gills and this shows that the persona might as well be dead without the other person. Everyone would be able to relate to this as everyone has suffered…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Inner conflict is the number one cause of depression and anxiety that is now found in approximately 3.2 million Canadian youth in today’s society. It is often an internal fight, man against self, one of the hardest battle one will ever have to face. With daily life, choices are always presented, and are made much harder when one is dealing with self conflict themselves. In the short story “ Choices” Susan Kerslake presents us with a young lady, Peggy, who starts of with making simple choices in the beginning of the story and later on bigger decisions that impact her choices from before. Another example of inner conflict is displayed in the poem “ My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. In this poem the duke struggles with extreme jealousy towards…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In literature, there are four types of major conflicts, and in many cases these conflicts are beyond the characters control. These four types of conflicts are man versus another man, for example in The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton, a major man versus man conflict are the rival gangs, the Greasers and the Socs. Another conflict is man versus nature, where a person is in trouble with a force of nature, like a tornado, or in this case a fire. Man versus society is where a character has conflicts with society’s views on “outsiders” and people who do not fit in. An man versus self, is where a character struggles against him or herself, with unwanted feelings. The main types of conflict that can be found in this book are, man versus man, man versus…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In lines 22-23, the speaker gives a detailed view of how the fish is in a near death experience and is fighting for its life. A small use of figurative language is used to describe the view of the fish’s gills as frightening (24). This proves how scared the fish was getting as it was almost down to its last breath. The gills are revealed as “fresh and crisp with blood” to continue to reiterate that death is on the way through imagery (25-26). This shows how man’s power can either be used for the better or the worse in the world. At this point, readers can see how the environment depends on the actions of human beings. The speaker then starts to think about the interior of the fish; they speak about its “white flesh”, “bones”, “black and red entrails” and “pink swim-bladder”. As the speaker looks into the fish’s eyes (34-35), the speaker makes note of how “shallow” and “yellow” its orbital area looks. In lines 37-40, the description of the eyes is continued. At this moment, there is a showdown between the narrator and the fish. Their eyes do not leave each other and the speaker starts to reconsider its actions. It is safe to infer that the fish’s eyes read desperation as it was facing death and was in need of a miracle. Once again, this establishes how much a person can influence the world through positive or negative actions. Bishop describes how sad the fish looked (45) and later emphasized on how intense it…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Battle Royal

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the short story "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison, the narrator's inner conflict stems from what his grandfather told him and what he instinctively believes to be true. His social conflict comes from living in a society that does not agree with him, and struggling to find his place in society.…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    An example of an internal conflict is when David is being beat up. This is an internal conflict because David has to resist the urge to fight back. He doesn't fight back because he believed if he did without a reason he wouldn’t be as good as the bully. This is an internal conflict because he does not discuss his issue much with the person whom was hurting him, he made the decision to not fight back by himself. He also made this decision…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “You have all these ingredients, the details of your life...you must add the heat and…

    • 2896 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Encountering Conflict

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Without conflict we won’t truly know the capacity of someone’s inner strength and understanding. Conflict is a true test which raises issues that otherwise wouldn’t be raised, issues which need to be dealt with in order for us to grow as a person. As well as testing a person’s inner strength and understanding it can also expose their weaknesses and flaws.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When Doty starts the poem’s investigative process, “a terrific kind of exhilaration me (Doty)” takes place. The sentences in the poem, “distinguished from the other –nothing about them of individuality”, made the movement of his writing clear. Beginning with This moment of exhilaration is the catalyst that quickly led him to write two sentences: “one that considers the fish as replications of the ideal, Platonic Mackerel, and one that likewise imagines them as the intricate creations of an obsessively repetitive jeweler”. The pace picked up at this point, and after the idea had grown, Doty could let the poem write for itself. It seems as if the ideas in the poem fell onto paper before Doty even thought about them. Surprisingly, his writing presented ideas that amazed him too.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays