The Fish Analysis

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his 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.

.: :.

It's literal interpretation is about catching a fish but if you compare it to past history you'll notice its closely related to slavery. His brown skin hung in strips, from the whip of his slave master.

| Posted on 2009-11-21 | by a guest

.: :.

When I was young
and had no sence
i tried to piss
on an electric fence
it curled my hair
and tickled my balls
and made me shit
in my overalls

| Posted on 2009-11-18 | by a guest

.: :.

The fisher is experienced, knowing the ailments of the fish, the internal parts of the fish, the parts of the boat. Perhaps the fisher is using a little, rented boat because she (or "he" if Bishop decided to make her narrator male) is older and no longer has the boat she once used frequently. Perhaps she identifies with the old fish because she, too, is old. A key point is that the fish did not fight, although we later learn that he's fought hard before. The fisher's conscience is conflicted, and she can't decide whether to throw the fish back or keep it, so she lets it dangle beside the boat while she decides. She studies the fish, even looking into his eyes, as she tries to make her decision. She set out to catch a fish, and has caught a "tremendous" one -- keep it. But he didn't even put up a fight and he's old and he looks grotesque and diseased -- throw it back. But the insides would make good eating -- keep it. But he's already been through so much and fought so hard to keep himself alive -- throw it back. But while others failed to catch this fish, I have attained "victory" -- keep it. The fisher gets help in making her decision when she sees the growing oil rainbow. The rainbow is symbolic of the rainbow that God put in the sky after Noah's Ark (another "boat") reached safety, and the animals and people on board were saved. Perhaps this elderly fisher hopes that if she shows mercy towards this fish, she, too, will be shown mercy.

| Posted on 2009-11-15 | by a guest

.: :.

"Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom"
I do believe the word wisdom is in the poem; 1 of only 2 abstract words.

| Posted on 2009-11-11 | by a guest

.: :.

The word wisdom is not located in the poem at all.
However, victory is

| Posted on 2009-10-24 | by a guest

.: :.

Everytime we come face-to-face with someone else's death, we come face-to-face with our own mortality- which, however inevitable and clear to us, is never easy to reconcile. The catcher is sparing him/herself by sparing the fish, who seems much at ease with his own mortality!

| Posted on 2009-08-16 | by a guest

.: :.

whats this poem about and what does it say about the subject

| Posted on 2009-06-04 | by a guest

.: :.

well writtem-did a presentation on this, great poem
-the comments before mine really helped me thank you

| Posted on 2009-05-13 | by a guest

.: :.

The only abstract words in the poem are victory and wisdom. The author uses concrete terms to create a better picture in the reader's mind.

| Posted on 2009-04-06 | by a guest

.: :.

This is a poem about a fish, and the interal struggle between whether to let the fish go or to keep it. Bishop uses personification by calling the fish him instead of it. In the end the fisher lets the fish go because that is the moral thing to do.

| Posted on 2009-03-11 | by a guest

.: :.

This poem is about an amateur fisher catching a fish. She is in a rented boat and she catches an ugly fish with many past hooks stuck in it. She compares it to a wise old man with war medals. She admires the fish and begins to see it as a survivor and as almost human. In the end she lets the fish go.

| Posted on 2008-12-08 | by a guest