A Fish Out of Water

                Man versus Nature is a conflict (if I could call it that) which has shifted in the past few years to include a harmony between the human and its mother earth beneficiaries.  The redemption for sport hunters is dwindling in favor of a more Transcendental view of nature despite the latest political maneuvering of the local NRA chapter.  Elizabeth Bishop’s poem about a caught fish is not a celebration of great fishing skill or magnificent equipment and technique; but rather, her poem is a portrayal of a heroic echinoderm or simply “The Fish”.

            An ambiguous point is made by the end of the poem as well as the title.  The speaker has returned the fish in this moment, but has the experience altered the speaker’s judgment of fishing in general?  One would assume so because of the momentous occasion on which the poem is based.   Slight confusion might also pertain to the title “The Fish”.  The plural of fish is fishes but to speak generally of all fish is to speak of fish of the world (if that makes any sense but the sentence does seem a bit fishy).  The matter is not helped either by the many uses of the word “fish” mostly as a verb.  Is the poet describing the action of fishing, the single fish, or the world of fish? The answer lies in the analysis of descriptive voice used throughout the poem.

            One should notice the use of awe-inspiring voice Bishop utilizes throughout the poem to describe the fish.  Lines used to describe the eyes of the fish “It was more like the tipping/ of an object toward the light”(918) evoke a sense of angelic purpose and the fish’s placement in view of a grandiose spectrum of light.

            In fact, the spectrum of light plays a significant role in the poem and the speaker’s ultimate decision to release the battle scarred fish back into the water.  The view point and interpretation of rainbows in relation to the poem create in the end a sensation of revelation and discovery.  “The oarlocks on their strings/ the gunnels-until everything/ with rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!/ And I let the fish go.” (919)  The revelation of the speaker is a realization of an illusion of superiority, the illusion coming from societal belief that Man is superior in all areas to the animal.  So how does this revelation echo with the afore-mentioned rainbow?

            The literal rainbow in the poem is created by a mixture of the oil and the water.  “From the pool of bilge/ where oil had spread a rainbow.” (918).  By entering into the fish’s domain, the speaker has synthesized a rainbow concocted from a  human substance and an animal habitat.  The rainbow symbolizes the harmony between Man and Nature.  The rainbow structure is similar to a bridge arching  between two far away points.  In reading the poem I kept in mind the story of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  Perhaps, since the rainbow is created at the specific point upon the water, the speaker is witnessing the far off point of reference for a rainbow.

            The fish, the singular fish, is the other end of the rainbow and the obvious point of the poem; however, the WORLD of fish is also included as well as the ACT of fishing taken more generally as sport hunting.  Bishop’s poem successfully elicits all of these responses creating from a single moment an entire microcosm of human experience.