The Fish

I chose to analyze to Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish" because the poem seems so simple, yet there is much to gather from reading it. This is a narrative poem told in the first person about a woman who catches a fish on a rented boat and, after staring at him for a while, decides to throw him back. The narrator of this poem goes through a series of stages in which she is at first detached from the fish, then intrigued by him, and then finally sympathetic towards him.
In the very first lines of Bishop's poem, the narrator catches the fish and treats him as such. "I caught a tremendous fish / and held him beside the boat / half out of water, with my hook / fast in a corner of his mouth". She has just caught a fish and is in the process of bringing him onto the boat. She seems very disconnected from this fish, who is just the target of fishing. When she gets the chance to take a good look at him, it seems that her view changes from detachment to curiosity and admiration.
She notices that the fish doesn't struggle but just hangs from her line in defeat. She describes him as "battered and venerable / and homely" and goes on to describe intricate details of his physical characteristics, really seeing the fish. As she moves towards his head, she notices that there are 5 different fishing lines dangling from his lip. She refers to these threads as being "like medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering, / a five-haired beard of wisdom / trailing from his aching jaw". She has admiration for this fish; this "tremendous fish" who has fought at least 5 battles with fishing poles of the enemy, coming out victorious each time. At the same time however, she talks of triumph: "I stared and stared / and victory filled up / the little rented boat". I do not know if she is feeling her own victory from catching the fish who had defeated so many others or the victory of the actual fish because he had been able to do so. Either way, she gains the utmost respect for this battle-worn...