The Fish: Important Quotes Explained

Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.

Lines 9–15 mark the moment the speaker first begins to describe the fish’s physical appearance. Immediately upon examining the fish, they see that “his” skin looks worn and faded, as though he’s already lived a full life. The speaker will later confirm this suspicion when they find five hooks embedded in the fish’s lower jaw. But what’s most notable about this passage is the speaker’s use of simile to liken the fish’s skin to worn and faded wallpaper. Strangely, the speaker uses this simile not once but twice. It may seem odd for the speaker to compare the fish’s skin to wallpaper twice in a row. Yet this doubling shows the speaker thinking in real time. It’s as if they make an initial comparison between the skin and wallpaper and feel unsure about it, but then decide the comparison is justified and say it again. This sense of the speaker processing their thoughts in real time gives the poem a quality akin to lyric poetry, which centers the unfolding thoughts and perceptions of the speaker.

While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.

In lines 22–33, the speaker reveals the sense of awe they feel in the fish’s presence. The word awe specifically refers to a feeling that combines fear and fascination. As the fish gasps for “the terrible oxygen” with his “frightening gills,” the speaker feels a rush of adrenaline fueled by fear. Yet they clearly also feel fascinated by the sight, as suggested by the close attention they pay to the gills, which they describe so vibrantly as being “fresh and crisp with blood.” In fact, the speaker is so fascinated that the sight of blood welling in the gills prompts them to imagine what the fish’s insides look like. They then proceed to speculate with equally vivid detail about the internal structures, colors, and textures of the fish. This passage provides a strong example of Bishop’s masterful use of imagery.

I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.

In lines 34–44, after the speaker has examined the fish’s physical exterior and speculated on what his insides might look like, they attempt to make eye contact with the fish. The speaker finds a radically different kind of eye staring back. Not only are the fish’s eyes bigger than the speaker’s eyes, but they also have a distorted look, as if discolored tinfoil had been packed behind a scratched lens. The speaker’s attempt to meet the fish’s gaze suggests a desire on their part to discern what’s going on in the fish’s mind during this cross-species encounter. It’s almost as if the speaker expects to find a human-like gaze look back at them. But what they find is, instead, a profoundly nonhuman gaze. This gaze doesn’t actively look in the same way the speaker’s does. Instead, the fish’s stare “was more like the tipping / of an object toward the light.” In the end, the speaker’s attempt to meet the fish’s gaze results in a moment of strange familiarity that at once invites and resists a sense of cross-species kinship.

I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

The speaker closes the poem with this passage (lines 65–76), where their focus shifts from the fish to the interior of the boat. Bilge water has presumably been seeping in through a crack in the rickety boat’s hull, and oil spilling from the rusty engine has created a thin film of oil on the water’s surface. The oil refracts the sunlight and casts a rainbow pattern over everything in the boat. What’s stylistically notable about this passage is that the first eleven lines are all part of one long sentence. This sentence builds line by line, clause by clause, all the while developing a sense of tension that’s waiting to be released. The speaker initiates this sense of tension with the word “victory.” At first, we don’t know what it means that “victory filled up / the little rented boat.” Eventually, however, we realize that this “victory” is linked to the colorful light that’s illuminating the boat’s interior, spreading around “until everything / was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!” The speaker utters this celebratory cry to express a feeling of ecstatic jubilation at the sheer beauty of the moment. The beauty of the moment, in turn, inspires the speaker to release the fish.