The Goose Fish

In “The Goose Fish,” two people who are in an illicit romantic and sexual relationship come upon a hideous dead fish and choose to believe that the fish’s apparent grin symbolizes a kind of grotesque approval of what they have just done together on the sand. The poem is also an enigmatic comment on the human tendency to interpret some random event or phenomenon in nature in symbolic terms, as if it supplies a meaning that would otherwise not be apparent.

In the first stanza, the two lovers on a deserted shore at night under moonlight “suddenly embraced” (Line 3), and the rush of passion that engulfs them transfigures the entire scene. Before, it was an “ordinary night” (Line 5), but the thrill they experience during their lovemaking lends a kind of grace or sanctification to the scene, and they feel like they are in paradise. This suggests the power of human love and sexual passion to transform the way people perceive the world, to lift the burden of the ordinary and return human consciousness to a lost pristine perfection. The only phrase that suggests the possible presence of something of a different character is “their shadows were as one” (Line 4), which suggests a darker coloring of the scene.