Towards the Better Light Essay Example for Free

Towards the Better Light Essay The speaker in Elizabeth Bishop’s poem â€Å"The Fish† portrays someone who is rather inexperienced to what he is doing. An amateur in fishing if I may say due to several lines in the poem that suggests the speaker is confused with conscience upon catching the fish. The poem narrates a series of striking turns of emotions felt by the speaker towards his catch. First is the excitement and thrill of actually catching a fish, followed by being dumbfounded by the fish’s state: weak and powerless due to the many battles and struggles it might have been through before. The speaker becomes extremely at awe with the features of the fish, given a long list of descriptions all throughout the poem appealing to all senses for optimum understanding of the readers. It is as if the speaker desperately wants everyone to understand how he exactly saw the fish and how he actually felt at that moment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Looking at the long list of detailed descriptions, it is evident that the speaker is moved and is renewed by this experience. In fact, he was so moved that confusion overtaking him has led to the decision of finally letting the fish go.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Epiphany, as Levin might define it, has overtaken the speaker in such a way that the experience is almost, if not life changing. Understanding the life of the fish somehow illuminated him, giving him a huge revelation to the meaning of life.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Changes in one’s life, as the speaker in Larkin’s poem A Study of Reading Habits may not be as moving as the amateur fisher in Bishop’s poem sees it. Rather, it may be more on deteriorating and depressing. The second poem entitled A Study of Reading Habits is also in a narrative form. It tells of the story of a person in three major points of his life- as a young boy, as a teenager and as an adult. The speaker expressed his emotions during these points through his portrayal of his reading habits during that time. Irony is present in the poem, as the decency and formality of the title contrasts the actual content of the poem, which is filled with slang terms such as â€Å"ripping† and â€Å"stewed†. This somewhat creates an image of sarcasm to give emphasis to the unfolding of a series of turmoil and depression throughout the speaker’s life. In the first stanza, reading serves as a way to brighten up his day if he is bullied and picked on by bigger kids in school. Using the term â€Å"cured†, the speaker points out that as a child, the books have comforted and soothed his fears of being oppressed because each time he reads, he enters a different world where he can be as strong and as magnificent as he wants to be. At adolescence, described in the second stanza, the speaker views the act of reading as a means of fantasizing sex in a dark, evil way. His sexual urges are probably triggered by erotic and ecstatic readings, as a naturally occurring part of puberty and adolescence. During these two stages in his life, reading has become his escape. He is very much relieved and transformed by the act of reading and whatever trouble and sadness he experiences in the real world is somehow erased by literary works. At these two stages, reading is still considered a good thing for him. However, as the speaker reaches adulthood, he came to a point of realization where his views have changed due to possibly more unfavorable events. At his point of realization, he now sees that reading cannot solve or even change whatever is happening in his life. Even his escapist tendencies in the form of reading cannot save him from believing that he is a loser, a failure of some sort.    Proofs to this are lines like â€Å"the dude who lets the girl down† and â€Å"the chap who’s yellow†, suggesting that even in his fantasies and made up world of stories, he still ends up being bad at what he does. The way I see it, it is not a form of depression but merely sadness. The speaker does not feel empty at all, but he feels terribly sad about not getting what he wants the way he has imagined things to turn out, or not getting what he wants at all. He does not blame the books for his sadness, but he now believes that he cannot rely on it as an escape from his sadness. Contrasting the amateur fisher with the troubled adult, the poems create two opposing attitudes towards life. The amateur fisher, a hopeful and inexperienced person that he is, finds beauty even in a lowly creature as the fish. He is able to empathize with the state of the fish and appreciate life in a better light through what he has witnessed. Being able to understand and feel the pains experienced by the fish, the amateur fisher is moved and blessed that he is in a better state. He let the fish go in exchange for a new lesson in life. The adult who has turned his back on reading, on the other hand, is more of a pessimist. He creates a negative aura in his life because he has let the drastic changes in his life get in the way of his joys. From finding it as a cure for sadness and oppression, â€Å"A load of crap† is how he now views the act of reading. Along with his maturity is the change in his attitude towards things. One is optimistic: learning from his experiences towards the better light while one sticks to his one- sided view of life, letting his self to be caught up in a dark, cold corner. References Bishop, Elizabeth. â€Å"The Fish†. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Meyer, Michael.5th Edition.   Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. 509-511. Larkin, Philip. â€Å"A Study of Reading Habits†. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Meyer, Michael.5th Edition. Bedford/St. Martins, 2000. 511-512. Levin, Harry ed. The Portable James Joyce. New York: Viking, 1947. .