Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop

The Fish
1. Close observation, detailed description
  1. 'Coarse white fish'
    1. Enhances descriptive qualities
2. Triumph of adversity
3. Vivid and realistic
4. Alliteration and assonance add musical qualities
  1. 'Shapes like full blown roses' sense of awe
  2. 'Backed and packed with tarnished tinfoiil'
5. 1st Person: 'I caught', 'I looked' etc
  1. Immediacy and makes the reader feel closely involved
    1. Simple and direct language
      1. 'I caught a tremendous fish'
        Adjective shows her excitement
        Tremendous
        'Battered, venerable and homely' suggest
        Sympathy and admiration
        Repetition highlights the triumph
        'Rainbow Rainbow Rainbow'
        Admiration for fish and what it represents
  2. Remarkable eye for detail
    1. Vivid verbal painting
      1. 'ancient wallpaper'
    2. Less pleasant: 'Tiny white sea-lices' 'Frightening gills'
6. Tone: Awe and respect
  1. 'I admired its sullen jaw'
  2. 5 fish lines symbolise struggle agaiinst adversity
    1. broke..crimped..broke..got..away
The Filling Station
1. Endurance of human spirit
2. Isolation is relatable
3. precise detail
4. beauty in the most unlikely things
5. Startling metaphors, 'clouds of hay', 'pitchforks, faint forked lightenings'
6. Personification, the first star came to warm
The Prodigal
1. Love and beauty can be found even in the midst of filth and ugliness
  1. curious poet
  2. unseen love has attempted to make it feel like home
    1. 'somebody loves us all'
  3. somebody never named
2. Precise detailed description
  1. photographic eye
    1. 'black translucency'
    2. Ordinary language
      1. 'Be careful with that match'
      2. fascinated by the filth
        'oil soaked monkey suit', 'greasy sons' 'grease impregnated wickerwork'
        reference to sons and father adds domestic dimension
  2. greasy and grimy filling station
  3. decorative touches in contrast with filth
    1. comic book, begonia, daisy stitch' in doily
    2. 'Do they live in the FS?'
    3. 'Why oh why the doily!'
3. Conversational language
4. Touches of humour
5. Colloquial language 'a dirty dog' 'quite comfy'
  1. 'Oh it is dirty!'
  2. sense of home

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	Created by rogerwaters about 10 years ago