Humanity's Separation From Nature in "The Fish"

            “The Fish” turns human arrogance in the face of nature on its head, detailing our role within as a subordinate exile. Marianne Moore emphasizes this point in the sentence reading “All/external marks/ of abuse are present on this/defiant edifice-/all the physical features of acc/ident-lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and/hatchet strokes, these things stand/out on it; the chasm-side is/dead” (Moore 30-41). To abridge her primary tactics in doing so: she juxtaposes a lush vision of the ritual protagonist’s ocean home with a rather opaque description of man’s effects on the setting, utilizes choice diction emphasizing a sense of externality, and engages a choppy flow that jolts the reader from the calming roll of the prior stanzas.

            The visual contrast between the previously cited sentence and the vast majority of the poem is rather stark. In prior stanzas, Moore’s verse is stunningly vivid, with precise, swarthy phrasing such as “the submerged shafts of the/sun,/split like spun glass” (10-12). Yet, in the sentence chosen here, her choice of imagery is muted. It stands out within the whole not for its spectacle, but for its lack thereof. Within the sentence, Moore does not use a single adjective, metaphor, or simile; in over-simplified terms, she does not engage a single piece of visual rhetoric. Yet, in the four stanzas prior, nearly every line, every creature composing the sunlit tide, is intoned on the back of some sort of evocative imagery. It would be an exaggeration to imply a total lack of sensory engagement; the reader can envision, albeit in the most black and white terms, how the “chasm-side” (40) may appear. But Moore appears to affirm her visual intent in the parting words of the sentence: “the chasm-side is/dead” (40-41), just as the ocean beneath is alive. One could argue that Moore means to indict human action as murderous. Yet, given the almost hyperbolic extent to which she emphasizes man’s ostracization, such contention would find little base.

            Moore’s diction reveals a singular view of humanity’s destructive efforts within the ocean’s clockwork-like system; that it is not, in fact, within the system, but outside of it. Notice how Moore characterizes the initial reveal of man’s violence against the chasm-side. They are “external/marks of abuse” (27-28). Not just “marks”(28), but “external/marks” (27-28). The identifier of external, in a syntactic sense, is unnecessary. So, its inclusion necessitates that we assume intent. Moore wants us to know that this “abuse” has not reached the depths of the sea, nor the titular fish, but instead forced to remain outside, “external”. She further emphasizes this point by precluding any pity for the so vividly detailed ocean by invoking its seeming disdain for human action, describing it as a “defiant edifice” (29), implying both active resistance and disobedience. The “edifice” is not a victim to be pitied, but a tyrant spitting in the face of an unworthy rebellion. And just as Moore’s stating “the chasm-side is dead” seems to affirm her visual intent, the concluding lines of the sentence also reinforce her intended sentiment. Moore provides a brief gloss of the “external marks of abuse”: “lack/of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and/hatchet strokes” (28-29). But she defies prior tradition by not detailing its effects within the system, but instead emphasizing its ostracization, stating “these things stand/out on it” (29-30). Moore works in a clever set of potential definitions for “stand out” here. The marks “stand out” in the sense that they do not appear to fit in, and also “stand out” just as a man venturing into the waves would be forced to stand outside the waters, above the tides, lest he be drowned.

            The contrasting flow of the sentence relative to the rest of the poem reinforces this sense of asymmetry. Prior to the two stanzas composing the sentence, there are two breaks (breaks defined here as separations in the verse, i.e. semicolons, colons, dashes), a dash and a semicolon. In these two stanzas, there are two breaks as well, also a dash and a semicolon. The initial dash prior to this sentence serves as a bridge between two similar visual phrases, wherein Moore writes “into the crevices-in and out”. The flow is not broken by the dash, but assisted. Now, examine the use of the same symbol in the lines “All/external/marks of abuse are present on this/defiant edifice-/all the physical features of acc/ident-lack/of cornice…” (30-37). Moore, rather than engaging the dash to further the rhythm, does so to wedge in an entirely separate phrase. The dash is used in place of a transition. Moore refuses a chance to continue the poem’s flow, in a place where the reader has thus far been conditioned to expect a continuation of the rhythm. But instead, they are stopped short. This shift to a choppy, staccato meter stands in sharp contrast to the smooth placidity of the vast majority of Moore’s piece, further emphasizing the point of separation.

            By juxtaposing imagery and rhythm between the examined sentence and the preceding stanzas, and careful word choice to reinforce a sense of externality, Moore reminds readers that despite man’s hubris, our attempts to rebel against nature itself, a system of outrageous scope and complexity, are futile, and can only end in our own exile.