The theme of At The Fishhouses

Based on the dominant images, diction, and detail in “At the Fishhouses,” by Elizabeth Bishop, the theme of the poem is that people easily find beauty and symbolism in things that are “translucent” and easy to understand, but usually have difficulties coming to terms with and understanding things that are “opaque” and difficult to comprehend. The imagery in “At the Fishhouses” portrays a rugged, hardworking environment where “an old man sits netting” at twilight, and where “the air smells so strong of codfish it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.” The fishhouses themselves have “an emerald moss growing on their shoreward walls,” and the tools the fisherman use are “ancient,” have “melancholy stains, like dried blood,” and “the ironwork has rusted.” But among these seemingly callous things, the speaker finds beauty. The scale covered wheelbarrow is described as “plastered with creamy iridescent mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them.” The speaker indicates that her grandfather has friends there, which may be why the fishhouses are a source of so much beauty for the speaker, and why the fisherman’s lifestyle is so easy for the narrator to understand. The speaker also demonstrates through imagery the connection between the sea and the fisherman, and therefore, knowledge and everyday life. The speaker of “At The Fishhouses” shows clearly her difficulty at coming to terms with her own experiences outside of the fishhouses, and the perplexity of the sea.
The diction of the poem was the key to readers to being able to connect with the poem. The speaker’s sudden switch from referring to her own personal experiences to referring to the reader directly pulls the reader in to the lines “If you should dip your hand in, your wrist would ache immediately, your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn as if the water was a transmutation of fire.” This abrupt change in diction demonstrates exactly what the speaker wants the reader to notice. Overall, the use of everyday language mixed in with a few words, such as opaque and translucent, is the speaker’s way of getting the reader to notice important phrases and hidden meanings.