Throughout “The Fish”, by Elizabeth Bishop, the speaker describes catching a fish with vulgar and disgusting words.  Then one sentence later, the speaker describes these same objects with beauty and elegance.  The speaker is realizing that there are multiple ways that one can look at the same scenario.   In “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop, the speaker realizes that the deeper you look at things in life, the more your will appreciate their beauty.  The speaker describes objects in the poem with an initial disgust, but proceeds to describe the same objects with beauty that previously hadn’t been noticed.   This causes the speaker to realize the different ways he can perceive everything he encounters in everyday life.  

When the speaker first caught the fish he was distraught that there was no effort by the fish to fight back.  He described the seemingly weak fish as “a grunting weight, / battered and venerable / and lonely” (lines 7-9).  The fish was basically dead just hanging on to the speaker’s line and gave no fight whatsoever.  His initial reaction was disgust because he had basically caught a dead fish.  This is due to the fact that the fun part of fishing is the fight.  However, as the speaker took a closer look at the fish, he realized that the fish was old and just didn’t have the effort to fight anymore.  As he looks closer at the fish he starts to see this beauty that comes with age that hadn’t been noticed before.  The speaker describes the beauty of the fish as

...ancient wallpaper, 

and its pattern of darker brown 

 was like wallpaper: 

 shapes like full-blown roses 

 stained and lost through age (11-15).  

The speaker now knows that even though the fish may have just been hanging there like dead weight, the fish has been aged over time and actually looks elegant like brownish wallpaper that changes shades.  He no longer looked at the fish like a dead weight, but now looked at the fish as a beautiful creature that he was holding on his line.  The speaker realized that this fish can be looked at positively and it should be something he should be proud to catch rather than thinking negatively as something he just happened to snag on his line.

As the speaker is holding the fish, he notices the pain the fish is enduring.  The fish’s gills have been cut severely and the fish was clearly suffering.  He portrays the fish’s blood as “fresh and crisp” (25).  As crazy as it sounds, there is a certain beauty to pain and suffering.  The author is making a point that if something as vulgar blood can be described in an elegant way, then there is no limit to what can be appreciated.  If a person takes one’s time when looking at something in everyday life, the beauty in what one sees will eventually come to the surface.  The speaker then proceeds to look down the fish’s throat, and he notices all the organs inside the fish, which may not sound appealing to most people. But unlike most people, the speaker describes the fish’s insides using colors and adjectives like “the dramatic reds and blacks” (30). The speaker describes the insides of the fish with words that would normally be associated with art or a painting.  He even went as far as comparing the fish’s bladder to a pink flower, which is not an orthodox way of looking at a bladder.  The speaker could have easily looked inside the fish and been grossed out, but instead he took his time.  This led him to appreciate the anatomy of the fish and the complexity of the fish’s body. 

After the speaker has seen the hidden beauty of the blood and the insides of the fish, he then realizes something else.  In the fish’s mouth “hung five old pieces of fish line…with all their five big hooks / grown firmly in his mouth” (51-55).  The speaker initially perceives these hooks and lines as just some old trash that must’ve stuck to the fish and didn’t realize what those hooks meant.  That is until he took a closer look and realized that the hooks were like “medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering” (61-62).  The speaker realized that these hooks were signs of the fish’s tough past.  They were like the medals of a war veteran that has lived a long and enduring life.  This fish used to be “the one that got away” and was a prize catch back in its prime years of life.  This made the speaker appreciate the catch a lot more and he now knows why the fish didn’t fight. The fish was just tired of all its fights in the past and didn’t have the energy for this one.  Before the speaker had taken a closer look at the fish, he seemingly wanted nothing to do with it.  And now he has gained so much respect for the fish that he is glad to have caught it.

Furthermore, when the “victory filled up the little rented boat”, it was more than excitement for catching a fish.  He realized that he doesn’t just have to think this way just when catching fish, but that he can think this way in everyday life.  He then saw the oil leaking out of his boat and described it as a “rainbow” (69).  Rather than having a preconceived judgment of what he sees, the speaker starts appreciating everything he looks at now including oil leaking out of a boat. After the speaker “let the fish go” (76), this was symbolic of him letting go of his negative way of thinking and was inviting a new way of perceiving things into his life.  Elizabeth Bishop didn’t just want the speaker to realize this insightful way of thinking, but the readers as well.  If people took the time to appreciate what they’re looking at rather than to have a preconception of whoever they meet and see, they will start to appreciate beauty where it would normally not exist and will all enjoy a victory in their own boats.
