The Fish Bishop

3 Pages 646 Words

There comes a time in a person’s life when every question they’ve had becomes answered. Everything confusing suddenly makes sense. The time can not be predicted, it just comes, like the wind. Unexpectedly, missing pieces, which caused confusion, take their place and become a clear, whole picture. Most people might say understanding occurs only in death, but some minor understandings before death occur also. An epiphany best describes the act of sudden understanding. Epiphany’s are displayed in Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish, as well in Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. The two pieces describe epiphany’s dealing with natural order and how tradition keeps the order and life flowing.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea tells the tale of a weary fisherman, Santiago, who, after many years of trying, catches the largest fish of them all, a marlin. The fish no one else in town could dream of catching. A catch such as this one is worthy of gloating over, but Santiago did not. He waited his whole life to catch the marlin and once he did, it didn’t really seem as important anymore. The marlin served as a turning point for Santiago; one could wait their whole life for something and once they get it realize it is not as important as they thought. Santiago was thrilled of course that he caught the unbeatable marlin bare-handedly, but it was a personal triumph to him. He let the marlin go, so that maybe another could feel the glory he felt. Santiago’s epiphany came when he realized catching the fish was for himself, not anyone else, and it didn’t really matter what everyone else thought.
Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish is practically identical to The Old Man and the Sea with the exception of the size scale of the fish. The Fisherman in The Fish also has a slightly different epiphany. The epiphany in The Fish occurred when the fisherman looked at the fish very closely. “And then I saw/that from his lower lip/grim,...