The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop - Essay Example But this initial impression of a sedentary, large old fish being caught with a struggle is belied when the poet sees the evidence of the tremendous battles the fish has already gone through in referring to it as â€Å"a five haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw.† The poem is therefore a tribute to the beauty and the miracle of survival. This is where the poet crates sympathy for the fish by combining both simile and metaphor as she mentions the five â€Å"old pieces of fish line† with their â€Å"five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth†, describing them as â€Å"medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering.† The fish with its aching jaw full of hooks, emerges as a symbol of pain and suffering, a battle embittered veteran of the waters. The poet has used the battered image of her boat and the grizzled old veteran fish of the waters, neither of which is particularly beautiful, in conjunction with an pool of oil bilge that produces a rainbow towards the end of the poem. â€Å"Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!† before she lets the fish go at the end highlights the beauty that exists in the ugly old fish – it has survived. As the poet stares into its eyes, this is â€Å"the victory† that â€Å"filled up the little rented boat† and the realization of its beauty is highlighted t hrough the simile of the rainbow. Bishop has used the device of parallelism very effectively in this poem to enhance the beauty of sheer survival in this poem. She starts the poem with the parallelism of â€Å"didn’t fight, hadn’t fought at all† but hangs a dead weight, â€Å"battered and venerable and homely† and leads it into the repetition of â€Å"rainbow, rainbow, rainbow† to show the discovery of the beauty of the fish’s sheer struggle for survival, which is why she lets it go. While reading the poem initially, the reader gains the impression that the poet finds