In Means's writing, The Goldfish has a crucial poetic function
The Goldfish has symbolic meaning in connection to the narrator's mother's experiences with a troubled marriage, divorce, remarriage, and personal redemption. The Fish is used as a parallel to the mother in this contrast. "She found herself going in to watch him, giving deep philosophical consideration to his actions," the narrator's mother writes. "She overcame the past and resolved to give better lives to the children and fish alike. She also shows a significant attempt to avoid such hidden feelings about pets like fish by planning to have "a small but deeply meaningful moment" for fish when he died.
The perseverance of the pet fish coincides with the difficult life of the mother
This relationship draws from a literary tool of parallelism to emphasize the challenges the mother went through in her marriage. The introduction of fish in the narration is set parallel with the mother and father starting off with happiness. As it later emerged that the dad engaged in an illicit affair and began to neglect the wife, so was the beginning of the predicament of the fish in the murky waters. The correlation in this scenario exhibits how the fish got good care when he first joined the family, "…he grew, until one afternoon…she went to Pet Universe and found a large tank and some water-prep drops and a filter unit… and a small figurine to keep the fish company…". The mother was fed up and decided that it was not proper to assume everything was all right with the cheating husband, "One evening…she saw her husband…she knew…he was emotionally agitated". This period was coincidental with the onset of the laxness towards the hygiene of the fish tank. The overwhelming disillusionment that the mother experienced during this time was reflected in the condition of the fish, "Shortly after that, the tank began to murk up…"
The fish's triumph over murky water with little light is symbolic of the mother's low moments
In her failed marriage and death of the first husband. However, the mother was able to emerge strong amidst such challenges, like the fish that survived darkness in the tank until light was back, "…he had succumbed to the darkness that had formed around him, and yet he was unwilling to die… He kept himself alive." Like the fish's perseverance, the mother overcame her divorce proceedings to redeem a better life for her children. The fish has therefore played a key role in boosting the message of Means.
Work cited
Means, David. "The Secret Goldfish." The New Yorker 31 5 2004. Web.
