Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop are two of the most famous poets of the twentieth century. Their poems are rich in small details and deeply layered meaning. By contrasting and comparing the use of irony, imagery, and symbolism in Frost’s poem “Unharvested” and Bishop’s poem “The Fish,” we can gain a greater appreciation for both of these poems and the poets as well.
We can being by comparing the use of irony in each poem. “The Fish” is comprised mostly of descriptions of the fish that the speaker of the poem caught. It is described as a “tremendous” (1) fish which had seemingly gotten away from many other people who had attempted to catch it: “that from his lower lip/–if you could call it a lip/grim, wet, and weaponlike,/hung five old pieces of fish-line” (49-52). After catching such an extraordinary fish, the speaker does the unexpected and lets the fish go without an explicit explanation. It is obvious that the speaker respects the fish and feels that it would be a shame to kill such a marvelous creature.
The irony is that most people who would have caught such a fish would never have simply let it go. In “Unharvested,” Frost creates irony by describing a scene in which apples from a tree go unharvested, creating an aroma which is quite rich, and then stating that other things should go unharvested so that we can enjoy them in similarly unspoiled ways. We usually think of apples which have gone unharvested as wasted, but here the speaker of the poem is implying that it was only because they were unharvested that they could be enjoyed as thoroughly as they were.
Bishop’s poem is almost entirely imagery of the fish itself, whereas Frost’s poem takes more time to set the scene the poem takes place in. The fish is described by Bishop as having “brown skin hung in strips/like ancient wallpaper,/ and its pattern of darker brown/was like wallpaper” (10-13). We are to appreciate the great beauty of the fish so that it would seem obvious that the speaker of the poem would prefer to preserve this fish by allowing it to live.
There is one main image in Frost’s poem: “As complete as the apple had given man. /The ground was one circle of solid red”(9-10). The poem mostly relies on smell for portraying the scene, and as such Frost relies much less on visual imagery in this poem. These poems rely on appealing to different senses, especially when considering that the fish of Bishop’s poem probably would not be appealing to smell.
Both the fish of the poem and the unharvested apples are symbols of appreciating nature without human interference. They become the symbol of appreciating nature because they are left unharvested. By taking them out of nature on our own, we can appreciate them in one sense, but the speaker of the poem considers this to be some sort of “theft”(14). While the speaker in “The Fish” does not directly state the reason for releasing the fish, it is meant to be obvious that the speaker admired this fish too much to kill it. We are meant to take away from this poem that nature can be more fully appreciated by not interfering with it; people on their own cannot create the splendor that can be found in nature, so leaving nature the way it is found is preserving its beauty.
Though some of the techniques used in these poems differ, it is interesting to note that they both have the same basic premise of leaving nature alone in order to preserve its beauty. This has been a common idea throughout the history of poetry in general, and so it only makes sense that these two great twentieth century poets would touch upon this as well.
Works Cited
Bishop, Elizabeth, “The Fish.” New York, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
Frost, Robert, “Unharvested.” New York, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.