Through the Eyes of a Fish
David Mean’s short story “The Secret Goldfish” compares the unpredictable and constantly changing nature of human life to the ups and downs of the fish’s life inside the aquarium. Mean utilizes the symbols of the aquarium and the fish to show us reality, unpredictable and transient, and the outright will to live which guides drives us onward.
The fish tank is a symbol of the ebb and flow between good and bad times. The fish’s existence which relies solely on the owner’s hand is predictable only by the constancy of the protagonists’ marriage. When the marriage is stable the aquarium is clean, the fish is well fed and happy “wondrously free, swimming – for all he knew – in Lake Superior… free of desires, needs, and everything else” (218).
This clean state represents the favorable parts of life. When the marriage become unstable the opposite happens, the aquarium became a filthy mess, “the water so clotted it had become a substantial mass, a putty within the fish was presumably swimming, or dead” (215).
The dirty stage symbolizes the base facets of life; the water is restricted, dark, and full of need. The fish tank is a representation of the ephemeral nature of life and the good and bad times we all face in our own lives.
The goldfish experiences symbolize the joy and misery of life; his strong will to live in the face of suffering and in doing so symbolizes our own personal struggles in the face of uncertainty. When the tank is clean Fish swam “jauntily… delighted, moving professionally, wagging his back fin” (219).
The Essay on Aquarium Balanced Tank
when setting up a new aquarium, one of the primary concerns of the aquarist is that of balance. a balanced tank is essential to the success of a new aquarium. balance in oxygen content, waste removal, and plant life is important, of course, but the choice of the main types of fish can be used to achieve a balanced aquarium. the first type of fish is the community type. community fish are, as their ...
Unfortunately more often than not the tank conditions are deplorable. Incredibly, even in the face of certain death the goldfish hangs on to life with every last ounce of energy “holding his life close to the gills, subdued by the dark unwilling to part with his cellular activities” (221).
Time and time again the fish displays an incredible determination to live even though his future remains uncertain. The fish struggles become a symbol of hope, as the creature hangs on to life even in the “most abhorrent conditions” (219).
The fish, unaware of what’s going on in the family’s life, instinctively desires to survive. Regardless of his predicament or whether his life will improve the fish knows only one thing; it must survive so that maybe tomorrow his tank will be cleaned. This in the face of adversity which the fish symbolizes is a valuable yet difficult lesson to be learned.
In conclusion the aquarium represents life and the goldfish represents determination, work to teach us a powerful lesson; in a life of suffering one must never give in. In the story the goldfish is an innocent victim of the protagonist’s turbulent family life. It struggles through life much like all of us not knowing what will come next. There is beauty in the simplicity in his ignorantly blissful state he does reason his suffering or complains or give up. In life there is only one thing that is for certain that one will experience suffering. It is easy to sometimes give up in the face of the harsh realities of this world full of suffering however even in the darkest of places as long as there is a glimmer of light a last breath of oxygen e must not give up we must persevere through our trial and tribulations hanging onto hope for the only other option is death.
