“The fish are all sick, the great whales dead,” this dramatize the sheer scale of the problem wanting to present that even the biggest animal on earth is at stake. Also since the earth is mainly water, a lot of animals would be living in the oceans. That would mean there are a lot of fish and sea creatures. The poet using “The fish are all sick” emphasizes the enormity of the pollution and shows her attitudes towards how the people treat nature.
The start of the poem strengthens the background nature of what the writer wants to present to the reader. The subject of the poem is mainly concentrated on the pollution we dealt to the sea. The writer is showing her anger towards the people who are moving into the rural site, close to the seaside as they are attracted by its beauty. They are polluting the sea, resulting in the death of the sea creatures. The irony here is that they come to be “safe”. They are unaware of the death and devastation in the environment around them. Stevenson condemns the people for looking through that ‘big window’ but not seeing the ‘fish are all sick’.
The purpose of the poem is subjected on environmental protection. It condemns our actions and makes us look back again at what we have done. The writer presented us this idea by first introducing the situation, “Sea men, who knew what the ocean did, Turned their low houses away from the surf…” and then the writer states the result that will occur because of this “Something is sicker and blacker than fish.” This presents us with a better understanding of the poem so that it could be more convincing and hopefully the people would realize this issue and would treat the environment with respect.
The writer’s emotion in this poem presented the sadness she felt using vocabulary such as “sad “and “dead”. She also gives the reader impression of the sea waves personified “White lip after lip” and forcing people to move away. “ And closing its grip, and closing its grip.” She uses alliteration here to show her determined attitude towards the actions of the fishes.
The structure of the poem reflects up on the sea waves. This is achieved by using syllables of 9-10 at the beginning and 5-6 in the middle and ending again with syllables of 9-10. This provides an up and down image that which can be imagined as a wave. She also uses Iambic to bring out the sound of the waves E.g. “Loud sound means waves coming towards the seaside and soft sound represents waves returning back to the sea.” Here, the writer thinks that the sea is showing its anger and is coming back with a vengeance.
The language she uses also emphasizes the image of the situation by using comparison, “Sicker and blacker than fish.” using the word something which introduces mystery and so it will let the reader think about it using their knowledge to find out and imagine what the “something” is. This makes them to think back to the attitude towards how they treat the sea.
Most persuasive poems that are convincing are usually ones, which explains the situation clearly without any uncertainty, and also include the results as for this situation. This certainly is true in the poem “The fish are all sick” The writer explains that pollution is causing the destruction of marine life. She presents us with her anger and condemnation that we continue to allow it to happen. Therefore this will help draw the reader’s attention to the seriousness of the damage that some people have done to the environment. It alerts them of their selfishness and insensitivity to the Mother Nature and warns them that they will eventually pay the price of polluting the sea.
Written by Patrick Wong
