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Fish By Suzanne Harris

Decent Essays

The short story of “Fish” by Joanne Harris is about the young and successful protagonist, Jack, who marries the youthful and wealthy antagonist, Melissa. To celebrate their honeymoon, Jack chooses to take his newly wedded wife to a city in Italy called Naples. There, Jack gets a chance to get to know Melissa better, as well as himself. In “Fish,” Joanne Harris shows how Jack is able to reconnect with his past and true self after he arrives in Naples with Melissa for their honeymoon.
The life Jake previously lives, in England, the one before coming to Naples, is a materialistic one. Jack marries Melissa for the same reason she marries him. That reason being the fact that she is a member of a wealthy family and that he is a successful young …show more content…

When Jack was a young child, “he had never really known his Italian family apart from his grandmother, who had died when he was a very young boy” (Harris, 248). He spent a lot of time with his grandmother, getting to know his background, which is what brought him back to Naples. The literary technique used here is the theme since one of the main ideas of this story is to connect one’s self which Jack slowly starts to do as he travels around Naples. It upsets Jack when Melissa shows how she thought coming to Italy for their honeymoon was a bad idea. Their first fight was even caused by the “beggars and pickpockets…no nice shops,” and how there was not a single restaurant in town that served anything that Melissa actually wanted to eat (249). This passage shows one of the differences between these two characters since Jack loves the Naples and the food there. Melissa’s complaining had only temporarily upset Jack’s mood, because “after years in exile, he was at last returning home” (248). This passage represents the materialistic world with the word “exile” and Naples with “home”.
Through her character and actions, Melissa represents the materialistic lifestyle, which is what Jack wanted in the past and now rejects. Jack had married Melissa for her wealth, but he was already successful, just not satisfied with what he already had. Melissa represents dissatisfaction by the gel pads in her bra that she used to “give herself some

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