The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop Essays -- elizabeth bishop poem poetry fi

The Fish by Elizabeth BishopWith fewer than litre published poems Elizabeth Bishop is not one of the most prominent poets of our time. She is however good known for her riding habit of imagery and her ability to convey the narrator?s emotions to the indorser. In her vividly visual poem The Fish, the reader is exposed to a yarn wherein the use of language not only draws the reader into the story but causes the images to transcend the written work. In the poem, Bishop makes use of numerous literary devices such as similes, adjectives, and descriptive language. All of these devices culminate in the reader experiencing a precise and detailed mental image of the poems setting and happenings. i of the most prevalent of the literary tools used in this poem is the simile. repeatedly throughout the poem Bishop uses the simile to cast the reader a clearer simulacrum of the situation at hand. The simile is an ideal literary tool to use when the author is trying to convey a sensory descrip tion of an fair game or idea. When describing the look for?s physical appearance in lines 9-15 she compares the fish?s skin to ?ancient wallpaper? this immediately gives the reader an feeling of the age and outward appearance of the fish. Later in the poem when in lines 61-62 she describes the pieces of broken fishing line hanging from the fish?s embouchure as ?medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering? she is using a simile to give the impression of pride and honor. This comes at a point when ...