"The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop

      In reading the poem, " The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop we are introduced to the speaker of the poem and this fish that the speaker caught. The speaker vividly paints pictures for the audience by telling us in great detail about this fish. " I caught a tremendous fish," is how we are introduced to what's going on. Just in reading the 1st line, I already knew that there must be great significance within it. As we continue to look at Bishop's poem, the speaker goes on to tell us about the fish's physical appearance. In telling us about the fish's physical appearance, we get that the fish is an ugly fish but the wordplay the poet uses to describe the fish's " ugliness," are actually beautiful ways of using language. It feels as though the speaker finds pleasure in her use of language and also invites the audience to feel that way; to want to indulge in the beauty of the wordplay, just as the speaker finds beauty in the fish. In the following lines of the poem, I feel like the poet used beautiful word intercourse to compare something "ugly," to something " beautiful". The exchange of words/ colors to describe and compare something ugly to something pretty, shows us how the speaker found " beauty" in the fish.

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.

            The fish even through many attempts to be caught, was described as a "warrior" and continued to swim freely in his environment day after day. This poem made me think about some other aspects in society. Beauty for one, the saying goes, " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." In our society, the idea of the ideal image of beauty bought on by the media, is of being super thin almost waif- like, with no curves. This image is all the media throws at young women, that this is how they must look to be " beautiful."  Society or us the people sometimes have not one idea what these models do to themselves to keep up this look of " beauty". Some of these models starve themselves, sacrificing their health and gaining horrible eating disorders and psychological disorders. The fashion industry uses a lot of photo- shopping and make up to keep these certain appearances or this look of "beauty," up. Women feeling the need to live up to these false or fake standards makes them then too sacrifice their health to achieve this. I feel like just like these women and models sacrifice their health and gain eating disorders or psychological disorders it's kind of like the fish in a way. I say this because the physical scars that the fish gains on his lips, is like the emotional or psychological scars these women gain. Even then a woman overall is a beautiful object in society's standards, hence the speaker still being able to find beauty in this fish too with admiring its " sullen face," or the "mechanism of his jaw." So you see " Beauty is in the eye of he beholder," and everyone has a different standard of beauty. You can find beauty even in the ugliest of matters.

   Looking up what symbolically a fish may mean, I came across a fish could mean " personal growth", or maybe a "deep unconsciousness." I found that pretty interesting and sought to see how I could relate that to our poem. I feel like from the beginning of the poem when the speaker catches the fish to the end of the poem when the speaker lets the fish go, there is an immense personal growth in the speaker that takes place. I feel like when the speaker was admiring the fish and going into detail in a new light about how beautiful the fish was, it was the beginning of the speakers journey into a new found consciousness. Instead of where the speaker was when she found the fish, she was growing to find the beauty in the fish and then towards the end let the fish go back into the water. I think that when the speaker let the  fish go back into the water it signified the speakers personal growth complete. The speaker allowed the fish that had been caught so many times, after admiring it's beauty, it's strength and wisdom, it allowed for it to go freely back into the water. I think the speaker took in the fish's essence for what it was and then decided it was beautiful living and allowing it to live in its own world just as it was beautiful for the speaker to awaken on a conscious level and really be alive and live in her own world.