‘The Fish’ by Elizabeth Bishop
CONTENT:
You can read this poem on two levels. On a deep level, the poem is about the
poet’s spiritual search for her mother. On a simple level, the poem is about
Bishop’s memory of a dilapidated filling station, a filling station on its last legs.
Let us first look at the poem on the simple face value level.
In Filling Station Bishop describes a filthy, untidy gas station in a remote place. She
mocks the black and messy appearance of the filling station. Surprisingly she finds
signs of order within its filth and disorder. Bishop wonders who provides the
orderly or domestic touches.
On a deeper level, this poem may be about Bishop herself. She missed and longed
for a mother figure in her own life. Bishop’s mother disappeared from her life
when she was five. But Elizabeth Bishop may have believed or wished that her
mother still cared for her in a spiritual way. She may have felt that her absent
mother shaped her life in the same way that a caring ‘somebody’ left her mark on
the filling station. The poem shows that Bishop may have tried to imagine that
there was a caring mother behind other people’s lives.
THEME:
The poem shows that even in filth and disorder a trace of love is evident. There is a
spiritual search for a mother and balanced family life.
‘Somebody loves us all’.
MOOD:
 The tone at the start appears to be cross and critical:
‘Oh, but it is dirty!’
 Sometimes the tone is puzzled and questioning:
‘Why, oh why, the doily?
 At times the tone is sarcastic:
‘Somebody waters the plant, or oils it maybe’.
 Sometimes the tone is humorous and mocking:
‘they softly say:
ESSO—SO—SO—SO
to high-strung automobiles’.
 Sometimes the tone is warm and hopeful:
‘Somebody loves us all’.
LANGUAGE:
 Alliteration [Alliteration is the repetition of first letters.]
Note the two ‘f’ sounds in this quote:
‘family filling station’.
The ‘f’ sound links the family to the filling station.
 Assonance [Assonance is repetition of vowels.]
Note the seven long ‘i’ sounds in the four ‘why’, two ‘oi’ and one ‘I’ of the fifth
stanza:
‘Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet’.
This long ‘i’ sound emphasises the continuous question ‘why’.
 Sibilance [Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds]
Note that ‘s’ is used fourteen times in the second stanza, in addition to the ‘s’
sound of the ‘c’ in ‘saucy’. This sound fits the meaning well as the poet is writing
about greasy dirt that covers everything.
 Rhyming
There is no regular rhyming pattern in this lyric. The only obvious line rhyme is ‘et’
in the second and last line of the fifth stanza. But there are many other sound
repetitions. The lack of line rhyming suits the conversational manner. Rhyming
dictates word choice and can make word order seem stiff.
 Internal Rhyme
[Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line.]
Note the way the ‘SO’ sound occurs four times in this line:
‘ESSO—SO—SO-SO’.
There are many more examples for you to find.
 Note the repetition of ‘oil’ twice in the third line:
‘oil-soaked, oil-permeated’.
 Rhythm
The rhythm has a natural feeling with the run on lines and everyday phrases like
the last line: ‘Somebody loves us all’.
Other sound repetitions and the two and three beat lines of the poem give it a
quick and flowing rhythm.
Sometimes the rhythm slows down. These complicated phrases cause the reader
to think about the image more.
The dominant rhythm is casual but fast. The last stanza is particularly fast with the
ten repetitions of ‘SO’. The rhythm builds up fast to the final decisive statement.
IMAGE:
 There are images of people in the poem – the family.
‘Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms…’
 There are images of setting in the poem.
‘Filling Station…
Oh, but it is dirty!’
 There are sarcastic images in the poem.
‘Be careful with that match!…’
1. What images of the filling station stand out after your first reading of the
poem?
2. Is the poet a character in the poem?
3. Would living in this filling station appeal to you? Why?
4. ‘Oh, but it’s dirty!’ Describe, using quotations from the poem, just how dirty
the filling station is.
5. In this poem, the father and sons have a lot in common. Discuss.
6. Describe the filling station.
7. ‘Somebody’ makes an effort to make the place pretty; what details has this
person added?
8. On the surface the filling station looks ‘oil-soaked, oil-permeated’ and
‘grease-impregnated’, but what lies beneath?
9. The poem ends with an unexpected ‘Somebody loves us all’. Where does this
idea come from in the poem?
HOMEWORK: Write a character sketch of either the father of the sons. Remember
that a good character should have a name, an appearance and a personality.