Elizabeth Bishop's Poem The Fish

Elizabeth Bishop's poem The Fish embodies a speaker who is the persona of the poem. According to Kennedy (1982), a "persona or fictitious characters [is] not the poet, but the poet's creation" (16). The persona in The Fish appears to be a female, primarily from the descriptions of the fish that focus on its physical "homely-ness" and her depiction of various aspects of the fish in colors of "pink", "rosettes of lime", and akin to a "big peony" (Bishop 2004, 1). The persona also appears to have an illumination or an epiphany, a moment of awareness when formerly unknown or subconscious information makes its way into the conscious mind.

The persona is fishing on a rented fishing boat. When she catches the fish, she informs us that "He didn't fight. / He hadn't fought at all" (Bishop 2004, 1). This implies that the fish is tired from its years of trying to survive in fishing waters. Bishop also uses personification by giving the fish human qualities, from referring to it as "he" instead of "it", to the persona's lending it sensible qualities. This is a fish that feels much like humans feel. His wounds cause him to feel pain just from b

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Category: Literature - E