Analysis Of The Fish By Elizabeth Bishop

Can someone give me a summary of this story or tell me what it is about?

o Page 49 “…the hooked fish, the female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her..”

“The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” by W. D. Wetherell, is an initiation story in which the symbols of fishing and Sheila Mant illustrate how the character of the narrator transforms from youth and innocence to sophistication and maturity. At age fourteen, it is typical for a boy such as the narrator to be beginning this transformation. Being innocent and naïve in a sense, the fourteen year old narrator gets an enormous crush on a seventeen year old girl named Sheila Mant and comes to believe she is what he loves most in life. For him, Sheila is a symbol of the maturity and sophistication he will eventually become a

A part of the world around him, the opinions of others is a vital means by which Hall introduces the fisherman. Immediately present in “The Ledge” is the fisherman’s relationship with his wife, “She did not want him to go. It was Christmas morning.” (369). The wife’s reluctance to see her husband leave is indicative of their relationship and the caring man that the fisherman is— she wants Christmas, a day of joy and love, to be

Black Fish uses the death of a recognized Killer Whale trainer at SeaWorld, Dawn Brancheau who was one of Tilikums trainers thorough his twenty years in captivity, almost as a framing device to explore the theory that possessing Orcas in captivity is corrupt and unnatural for the whales. In Black fish, there are many different tragedies that went on while the Orcas were in captivity. Fisher men separated the young from the mothers and took them into SeaWorld. Many of the workers were unaware of all of the immoral actions they were taking part in. Tilikum was the Killer Whale that ended up killing Dawn Brancheau and causing a stir in SeaWorld. Having Orcas in captivity damages them but, the trainers were scared to leave because they want to continue to care for the whales. There is a relationship shared with the trainers and the whales yet it is obvious that very little was taught in the SeaWorld industry about these intelligent mammals.

He refers multiple times to fishing terms that the general audience may not be knowledgeable of such as “spinner” (“Once” para. 1), “hellgrammite” (“Once” para. 5), and “bass” (“Once” para. 5). These terms not only classify White as a fisherman but also suggest the importance or impact that fishing and the lake have on his life. By using logos in his writing, he gains credibility with his intended audience.

Small details are instrumental in seeing the bigger picture. This is apparent when reading “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Most often the reader experiences visual imagery in poetry. In this poem the reader encounters visual, auditory, and sensory imagery. “The Fish” is filled with minute details that paint a picture for the reader. With each new element that is introduced, it becomes easier to visualize the fish. The speaker is able to show the reader the beauty as well as the ugliness of this creature with her vivid imagery. The imagery used is so distinct that the reader can envisage being the fisherman and catching this fish. Another important element involved in this poem is irony.

Sometimes our everyday experiences can strike us in ways that will influence our thinking in ways that might forever alter the way that we view our lives. In the short story “Fish Story,” Rick Bass primarily uses conflict, symbols, and the changes in a character to present a central theme reflecting the inevitability of our maturing thoughts and growing responsibilities that come incrementally with age. Gullason (1982) shares, “A short story represents a prose narrative usually concerned with a single aspect of personality changing or revealed as the result of conflict” (p. 222). We might interestingly find both of these dynamics within our weekly discussion’s short story assignment. Pigg (2017) explains, “The theme of a work of fiction is as much a creation of readers as it is for the writer because the user’s knowledge and beliefs play a part in determining the theme(s) they will recognize” (Attend Topic 4 Unit 2 [Video]). The writer of this week’s short story was likely to have known the theme that he intended to communicate while also recognizing the diversity of human thinking that gives us a myriad of perspectives. The “’Fish Story’s’ narrator is a 10-year-old boy in the early 1960’s living in rural Texas with parents who run a service station while their customer brings a 86 pound catfish creating a task to keep the fish alive until time to cook it” (Bass, 2009, pp. 1-2). As we recall our childhoods, most can likely remember how our imagination and fantasies began to collide with the realities of life, and this overreaching concept might allude to the theme of this piece of work. The narrator tells us how “He grew dizzy in the heat and from the strange combination of the unblinking monotony and utter fascination of his task until the trickling from the water hose seemed to be saturating and inflating the clouds as one would water a garden” (Bass, 2009, p. 2). As the narrator embraces the mundane task, his daydreams seem to symbolize the innocence of his youth. Later the story’s narrator “speaks less of childhood than of the general nature of the world in which we live, while contemplating that those days were different – we had more time for such thoughts, that time had not yet been corrupted”

The fish is a major symbolism within the boy’s life. The fish is mainly an illustration of a lost friendship or love. “Once the boy had seen a huge fish jump up high in the pond’s center, though his father told him the pond held no fish,” (Crabtree 72). The fish is a representation of the young boy’s friendship. The young boy thinks that he has a friend or love, but his father tells him that there is no such thing as a true friend. Stating that the friendship has ended or that the friend has gone away, either due to moving or death. Crabtree then writes, “But the boy had seen one, and was watchful,” (Crabtree 72). The young boy waits for that friendship to come. He waits for that one person that can help him through the ups and downs of life. He has encountered that feeling of love and honesty but now is just waiting for that person to come

“But the memory of that lost bass haunted me all summer and haunts me still.” In the story, The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant by W.D Wetherell is set mostly on the river. This story was told from the point of view of the main character, the narrator, who has a secluded crush on Sheila Mant but has an obvious crush on fishing. But what he does not see is who Sheila truly is under her skin until she agrees to go on a canoe ride with him. As they set out the narrator drifts a line in the water while when he sees new things about Sheila and her view on fishing. As he begins to carry on more of a conversation he gets a bite on his rod from what felt like the biggest bass of his life. Because of the narrator’s blind love for her, he let the fish go. In the Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant the author creates hesitation in the narrator’s decision between his true love and his blind love, through the use of conflict, Irony, and symbolism

intense diction, a tone of respect is produced. It is as if, for a moment, the

"When he was not in the boat, my father spent most of his time lying on the bed in his socks" with the bureau covered with "magazines and books". The mother "despised the room and all it stood for" deeming all of the books to be a "colossal waste of time". This division between the old traditions and generations of fisherman, and the fathers disconnection to nature, as portrayed by the sea, illustrates a sense of identity and belonging within each of the characters.

What makes Bishop’s poem a valuable example of good poetry is the continuous flow of her poetry. All throughout her poem, there is never a lack of beautiful imagery and description of the fish, as she starts off describing its physical appearance to illustrating its internal organs. In the lines “I thought of the coarse white flesh / packed in like feathers… / of his shiny entrails / and the pink-swim bladder / like a big peony” (27-33), the use of diction is varied, from prevailing adjectives (shiny, battered, tarnished) to relatively vague words (entrails, islinglass). This is extremely effective in Bishop’s poem, as the powerful adjectives give a deeper understanding of her feelings towards the fish and the capture, while the relatively

The text is very rich with description. The author makes it easy to imagine the beauty of the Rainbow fish even without the illustrations. He uses adjectives like “dazzling, shimmering, and sparkling” as he describes what all the other fish see as they admire the beautiful fish swimming past them. He describes the fish as “silent and proud.” Most people can relate to a situation in their own lives where they might have encountered a person like the Rainbow Fish. As the reader reads the text of the story, they will most likely find it easy to relate to the feelings of the little blue fish. They might also find themselves rooting for the Rainbow Fish and wanting him to figure out how to solve his dilemma so that he can make some friends and finally find happiness.

The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times.