Loves Song, with Two Goldfish Essay

In the poem, â€Å"(love song, with two goldfish)† by Grace Chua, the author describes the evolution of a young romance between two goldfish with its consequential rise and fall using imagery and metaphors. From the title we can automatically understand what the poem will be about and the parenthesis give an image of the shape of the fishbowl, creating a setting. The title is not capitalized because it is not just a statement, but is in fact part of a story that is constantly evolving and has many aspects. Upon the first stanza, we immediately get the impression of unrequited love. In the first sentence, â€Å"he’s a drifter, always floating around her, he has nowhere else to go,† we meet the two characters, him and her, and we encounter a lot of water imagery with words such as â€Å"drifter† and â€Å"floating†. These words however give off the impression that he’s alone and would be lost without her to follow. As if she’s his everything. We get the impression though that his love for her is not returned when Chua says, â€Å"he wishes she would sing, not much, just the scales.† The reader can understand from the word â€Å"wishes† that her singing is not something often received and because he doesn’t even want her to sing much, we can infer that his attention towards her is not reciprocated. However, I do not think that the fish is necessarily bitter about the circumstances because he uses humor when he says that he wishes she would â€Å"give him the fish eye† or â€Å"sing just the scales.† Because the characters are fish, the light-hearted metaphors offset the melancholy first sentence of unrequited love. Transitioning to the second stanza, we again see this fishbowl imagery. Just as the first stanza was in parenthesis, so is the second one, but now the reader gets the impression that the fish are in separate fishbowls when Chua says, â€Å"Bounded by rounded walls she makes fish eyes and kissy lips at him.† The word â€Å"bounded† gives the impression that she is trapped and being kept away from him, but we also learn that the feelings felt by the male goldfish are now felt by her as well. We also get a fun, flirtatious feel from this stanza which hints at a budding relationship. In response to him, she â€Å"makes fish eyes†¦kissy lips†¦darts behind pebbles.† I find the darting to be flirtatious because it hints at the caution she feels towards this new love, but as even pebbles are too small for a goldfish to hide behind, it shows her tentative openness towards the budding romance. Finally at the end of the stanza it says she â€Å"swallows his charms, hook, line and sinker.† The metaphor for the fishing line imagery again adds humor, but it also alerts the reader that she has completely fallen in love with him – an idea that progresses into the third stanza. Throughout the third stanza, we come across a certain ambiguity about whether the two goldfish are actually separate from one another. No longer are the two fish only referred to as â€Å"he† and â€Å"she† but by the end they’ve become a â€Å"they†. Both fish are also referred to within the same parenthetical statement which hasn’t occurred before this point. Unfortunately, they remained trapped in the bowl, and words such as â€Å"could† and â€Å"would† are scattered throughout the entire stanza. Depicting images of what the two would do if they could escape. One of the activities he describes is, â€Å"he would take her to the ocean, they could count the waves.† I think that this phrase describes his feelings towards the relationship very well. Because he’s with her and her company is all that matters to him, he doesn’t need to go out and have lavish experiences. He says that, â€Å"in the submarine silence, they would share their deepest secrets.† The consonance here with the â€Å"s† sound helps progress their seclusion from the rest of the the world along with the depth of their love with words such as â€Å"submarine† and â€Å"deepest†. The stanza ends with a simile stating that they would â€Å"dive for pearls like stars†. I think that the simile could have a much deeper meaning than them just diving to the bottom of the ocean. While the phrase could be seen as their love growing stronger and deeper, I see it as almost the opposite because of the constant usage of the words would and could in the stanza. The use of the heavens in love poems often give off the impression that love is infinite, but here they can’t reach the heavens as they are trapped within the bowl. Their entrapment symbolizes the lack of growth in their relationship and how they have not been able to move past the initial flirtatiousness of new love. By the fourth stanza we have reached the end of the relationship, and it becomes apparent that the fish could be metaphors for a human relationship. The goldfish could’ve been chosen to represent actual human beings because of the simplicity associated with a goldfish’s character and the similarly simplistic relationship. The stanza opens with her ending the relationship, and fish-related death imagery becomes common with phrases such as â€Å"belly-up†, â€Å"sinks like a fish† and â€Å"drowns†. While in previous stanzas, the fish imagery added a humorous note, here they add a much darker tone where the dead-fish imagery becomes metaphoric to the death of the relationship. The reader can infer that the ex-lovers were in fact humans when Chua says, â€Å"He drinks like a stone. Drowns these sorrows, stares emptily through glass.† The word drown here might not be relating to the actual act of drowning, but to the act of getting drunk and possibly drowning his sorrows in liquor. As he â€Å"stares emptily through the glass,† the glass could symbolize both the fishbowl and the end of his drink, and the loneliness that would accompany both. Finally in the last stanza, we learn as to why the couple broke up, and the use of parenthesis plays a major role in exhibiting their distance- as if they’re in two separate fishbowls once again. This stanza is the shortest, and it goes, â€Å"(the reason, she said/ she wanted)/(and he could not give)/ a life/beyond the/ (bowl).† Here we see the two separate sides, and how she left him because she felt trapped within the relationship. This theme of entrapment is noticeable throughout the entire poem with the fishbowl imagery, along her desire to escape with the words â€Å"would† and â€Å"could†. When lines 26-27 don’t use the parenthesis, it shows her dream of exploration and moving past the known realms of the fishbowl. The break-up was her escape from the binding fishbowl, and her ensuing freedom from the confining relationship. Throughout the poem, Chua described the evolution of a relationship from the bubbly excitement and tentativeness of new love, to its downfall from confinement and resulting break-up with emotions ranging from sorrow to freedom. Real human emotions are expressed through those of goldfish to express the simplicity of their relationship and to create a metaphor through the entrapment they must feel within the bowl.