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Critical Analysis Of The Poem The Fish By Elizabeth Bishop

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Cracking “The Fish” Most poem’s are difficult to crack, you reread and look through different points of views which helps define the true purpose of the poem. The road to finding this true meaning isn’t always easy, personally I found that the poem “The Fish” written by Elizabeth Bishop (25) was on of the harder poems to find the true meaning. Throughout the poem the speaker is talking about their experience of catching a large fish. The constant imagery and detailed description of this fish makes it hard not to feel like you were there with the speaker when catching the fish. Although it 's quite clear that this poem is focused on this beautiful fish it’s difficult to see if there are multiple meanings to this poem. From what I’ve learned from poetry many poets don’t flat out say what they want the reader to take away from the poem. Instead the poet gives the reader just enough to discover the purpose themselfs. The editor of this poem, Joseph Kelly, regards the poem “The Fish”as being one of Bishop’s experiences “where she caught a giant Caribbean jewfish” which helped start up her career as a poet(25).due to the. little explanation to the overall …show more content…

After spending more time with the poem it’s clear that this poem isn’t all focus on the story of catching a fish. Although it does seem like this poem is all about fishing, when you spend more time with it you can see how the fish is a symbol for something more. I think the Bishop used the fish and her story to convey the meaning that life is hard and eventually you stop fighting. The imagery buildups helps add to this conclusion as well as take the readers distraction elsewhere. Which is why I believe I struggled finding this meaning to begin with. Based on what i’ve learned it’s quite clear this fish is representing a person, not necessarily the speaker or poet but every person and thing. How life is difficult and we all try are best to keep going but every now and then, like this fish, we give up

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