Critical Analysis Of The Fish In The Stone By Rita Dove

The poems ‘The Beginning’ and ‘Turtles Hatching’ written by Mark O’ Connor effectively “uses poetic techniques which create distinctive images” through this “O’ Connor draws us into experiences of life and death in our world.” These poems reveal the complexity of nature and the necessity of predation within creation to maintain and limit the balance of life in our world.

Though written in a very light and simple manner, the poem comes across as something very profound, laden with meaning through its incongruities. The persona, wanting to see something, often goes to the well and looks down at the water to see it. This certain search below the water's surface can be compared to man's search beneath the human experience for meaning, for certainty.

The river represents the period between life and death. Another part of this symbol is the air representing life and under the rocks and waterfall representing death. Just as the transition from life to death is in motion, so is the rushing of the water. Both have a beginning and an ending point, but the part in the middle is constantly moving, swirling and churning. As the girl loses hope for survival and the waterfall is approaching, the narrator states, “[S]he becomes part of the river” (45). The girl now crosses over the borderline of life and death, and she is about to be swallowed up by the falls of death and can never return to life. However, when the diver goes into the river to save her, he comes out saying that “he’d never enter that river again” (47). He encounters the spiritual eccentricity of the edge of death when he looks into lifeless girl’s animated eyes, and he can not fathom that experience. Another symbol that is introduced twice is the gurgle of the aquarium, which symbolizes the attempt to understand nature’s cycle of life. As she floats downstream, the girl remembers “her sixth-grade science class, the gurgle of the aquarium at the back of the room”(45). During this moment, all of her thoughts are puzzled, and she cannot understand the death awaiting her. Later on, after sleepless nights, the diver is in the empty school where “the only sound the gurgle of the aquarium” (48). This moment is the point at which he decides

The organization of the poem is interesting. Each line is either an incomplete sentence or it finishes a sentence. The stanzas are each about three or four lines long which contain some arduous words. An example is the word “weir”. Lowell writes, “...the sea lapped/ the raw little match-stick/ mazes of a weir” (ll. 9-11). After research on it, the word means, a fence or enclosure set in a waterway for taking fish (Merriam Webster). This word is important to know because of the imagery it represents. The raw little match-sticks mean that it’s burnt out and so is their love for eachother. The weir is where the rock would be next to. They’d see the fish being trapped. This shows how the speaker the was fish. They were emotionally trapped in the town and the relationship.

From the prologue we can tell that fish lamb is embracing death and that he wants it to happen. Without the epigraph “Shall we gather at the river where bright angel feet have trod” we wouldn’t be able to understand the themes. These themes all contribute to one underlying theme ‘completeness’ through the other themes fish is able to search for completeness. He finds completeness through drowning and reuniting with his lost

David Foster Wallace wants the reader to realize that the most important and the most obvious realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Seeing what’s right in front of you can be the most difficult thing because you are always looking further and not opening your eyes to see the most obvious parts of life. Wallace is additionally trying to get the reader to tap into the real meaning of life as well as trying to move people away from their “default setting”. The opening of this speech starts out with the story of wise fish and the two young fish. After being asked about the water by the older fish, the two younger fish realize that they don’t know what water is. Fish don’t know water exists until beached;

Tim Burton’s Big Fish has elements of fables, fairy-tales, and tall-tales. At first, these elements dimish the relationship between Will and his father, Edward. However, towards the end of the film and of Edwards’ life Will discovers the truth behind the myths and starts to understand why his father is the way that he is.

The thoughts and emotions that occur in connection with water are triggered by the lake, and they help Ruth choose transience over any other form of existence. When water floods Fingerbone, the boundaries are overrun, exposing the impermanence of the physical world, and the world’s own natural push towards transience. Water shifts the margins, warning us that the visible world only shows us part of the whole--or perhaps even a mere reflection of a false reality. After the fantastic train wreck in which Ruth’s grandfather perished, the lake sealed itself over in ice, changing boundaries again, while it concealed, like a secret, the last traces of the victims with the illusion of its calm surface. The lake, a source of beauty and darkness, life and death, is “the accumulated past, which vanishes but does not vanish, which perishes and remains” (172). Water carries the symbolic possibility for rebirth– the flood causes the graves in the town cemetery to sink, “so that they looked a little like…empty bellies," suggesting that the dead were born into the receding waters (62). As water and death are so pre-eminent in Sylvie’s consciousness, in dream, she teaches Ruth to dance underwater, to live a life of transience to be

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

The poem contains two stanzas with two different settings. One might not know much about the first stanza; however, in the second one the speaker is next to an ocean, perhaps, at a beach. So, while the first stanza symbolizes the mindset of the speaker, the inner dream, the second stanza symbolizes the outer dream which is what we see; life. The poem

The poem “Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa has a tone that will haunt a reader well after they are done reading it. The poem is about the author, a veteran visiting the Vietnam veteran’s memorial for the very first time. The author describes the emotional impact the visit has on him. The author uses lines such as “I said I wouldn’t, dammit: No tears.” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 3-4) and “I’m stone. I’m flesh” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 5) to drive home the emotion and deep feelings in the poem. Throughout the poem the author utilizes personification to add to the effect and the tone of the poem as well. The author talks about the memorials stone as if it were alive. He uses the line “I turn this way –the stone lets me go.” (Komunyakaa, 1947, line 9). This is an example of the personification the author uses to help bring the stone to life. The author feels the stone truly has a strong hold on him despite only being an object.

The repetition of the word “fisher” or “fishing” mirror the hazardous menace of predators (3, 4, 11). While the fish are labeled the prey in this instance in the poem, the fishermen are commonly labeled the predator. Humanity is known in their role in any given ecosystem as the top of the food chain. This is explicated within the poem between the roleplay of the human hunting for the fish with all the necessary tools of a “fishing pole” (9) and

Pride comes in many forms, and when it grows, people get carried away and forget who they are. Supreme pride is just one trait that ties three tragic heroes together, and which it destroys their lives. Creon struggles with his own within the play Antigone by Sophocles; which is shown when he is not capable of creating an atmosphere of respect as king, without putting himself on a holy pedestal. Then Oedipus from Oedipus the King, also by Sophocles, shows his pride in a much different manner. Oedipus tries to go against his own fate that the Gods have already laid out for him.

Bluefish the book is serious is because Travis has a secret and is a dark secret he has. And he is hiding it away from people he know and family members too. That is a serious thing because that is affecting his relationship with Velveeta. Velveeta is a girl that is friends with Travis. Also, Travis has feelings for Velveeta. Then, Velveeta knew that Travis is hiding a secret from her. So, now she tries to solve the secret what Travis is hiding from her. But, then she gives up and asked him what was his secret.But, Travis was shocked and said to her “I can’t tell you Velveeta”. After, Travis told Velveeta he can’t tell her, then she got upset. Now, Travis had no friends.

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.