The Fish

The theme of age, and the weathering and dilapidation that comes with it, is another thread that runs through Bishop’s poem “The Fish.” The caught fish is described as “battered” (Line 8), and its skin is detaching like old wallpaper from a wall. The skin’s coloration and patterning are described as “stained and lost through age” and overgrown with barnacles (Lines 15-16). Seaweed on the fish’s body hangs down like rags (Line 21), while its eyes are blurred and tarnished. The fishlines dragging from its mouth are old and frayed, and they are described as “a five-haired beard of wisdom” (Line 63) on the fish, personifying the fish as a wise old man.

After Bishop describes the fish in these terms, her micro-focus on the fish broadens a little to her immediate surroundings, which surprisingly, are just as dilapidated. The boat’s interior is similarly described as “rusted,” (Line 70-71), “sun-cracked” (Line 72), and oil-stained (Line 69). While Bishop does not include a description of the speaker in the poem, it is possible to read the description of the fishing vessel as a metaphor for the speaker themselves, who is likewise filled with the revelation of victory. This motif of dilapidation, which appears in both the fish and the human vessel, assists in the poetic connection of human to nature at the heart of the poem.

Images of flowers and other vegetation occur frequently in “The Fish,” giving the poem a rich, lush poetic tone to complement the precise examination the speaker carries out on the fish. One of the first striking images used to describe the fish is rose-patterned wallpaper, as the speaker notes “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” (Lines 10-14). Further on, the barnacles attached to the fish's skin are described as “fine rosettes of lime” (Line 17). The speaker imagines that the fish’s swim bladder is “a big peony” (Line 33), an ironic image that reimagines an organ as a fragrant and airy explosion of fleshy pink. When describing the fish’s shifting gaze, the speaker says that its eyes turn not to her face but “toward the light” (Line 44), which brings to mind how flowers move to face the sun. In many ways, equating the fish’s being with something more akin to vegetation increases its alien nature and emphasizes its closeness to all of nature as a more primitive form of life. It likewise speaks to the inherent beauty of nature, whether found in a garden or along the depths of a sea bed.