Anne Billington
Fish Woman
The woman turns herself into a fish is a poem about sexlessness and women’s rights in “The Woman Turns Herself Into a Fish” by Eavan Boland. This poem explores women’s rights through an interesting lens[BJ1] of sex organs and sea creatures. What if we were all created equal[BJ2]? It is an impossible dream that raises many questions about how men and women treat each other now and what is and isn’t right. This poem asks what should a woman want to be, what is a woman to society and what is a woman to herself?
The poem begins with the lines “Unpod/the bag/the seed.” Discussing how the author wants to transform from human to fish, to change from something sexual with “seeds” to something indiscriminate. The author then goes on to discuss the flattening of her “rump” or her butt and turning her mouth and eyes into that of a fish. These are important features because they are the features that men often look to when they think of sex, the eyes, the mouth, and the butt. Here the author wants to eliminate any trace of her sexual prowess or her status as a woman.
Next the author seeks to rid herself of her womanhood by saying, “eclipse in these hips, these loins/the moon, the blood flux. It’s done.” Let’s look at the author’s use of the word “eclipse” here, it is the last phase of the moon blocking out the sun and it blocks it out entirely in this phase. This is important when considering her use of the term “eclipse in these hips” she wants her hips blocked out entirely. She then references her loins and the moon and but in[BJ3] an eclipse the moon and the sun are equally as dark so she wants to cover her loins as well. The “blood flux” or blood flowing out is done, which is her goal, to no longer be a woman and no longer be concerned with bleeding, loins and hips.
The author is now a fish, she says, “I turn, / I flab upward/blub-lipped, / hipless/ and I am/sexless,/ shed/ of ecstasy” her goal of shedding her womanhood has been reached and she has turned from her female nature to the nature of a fish. We know that the author wants to be a fish because of the title of the poem and because of her use of words like “flab” and “blub-lipped.” It is here that the author explains why she wants to be a fish. The word “hipless” comes with contentions? like youth and not being a woman yet. This is clearly her goal as she moves onto saying “sexless” and “shed of ecstasy” demonstrating that she no longer wants to be a sex symbol or absorbed in sex. A fish is not a non-sexual creature but an animal[BJ4] that looks the same wheather male or female and so it’s hips, breasts, and butt make no difference in the sexual process.
However, though the author doesn’t want to have all the trappings of being female she does want to be beautiful, “a pale swimmer, sequin-skinned, pearling eggs/screamlessly in seaweed. It's what I set my heart on.” Perhaps it is that the author doesn’t want to be societies society’s version of a beautiful female but wants to be her own version of a sexy and enticing woman[BJ5]. This is why she has picked the image of the fish, because it is unusual and this is why she says things like “pearling eggs.” She is not completely against being female as she had earlier expressed but she wishes to be reborn into a new version of female, one that has power over her own femininity and her own sex. She wants to be a fish, the same as a man, but as beautiful and fertile as a woman[BJ6].
Now that the author has established her new version of womanhood she finds that she is still not happy, “Yet/ruddering and muscling in the sunless tons/of new freedoms, still I feel/a chill pull” we know she is not happy because she uses words like “sunless”, “Yet” and “still” along with the term “chill.” The reader also knows that the author is disappointed because when she speaks of her ‘new freedoms’ she says that they are ‘sunless’ so though there are ‘tons’ of them, nobody sees them and she sees nobody. As a social activist what is the point in activating change if it will remain hidden and only change the author? Her transformation into a fish might be the best thing that has ever happened to a woman but if she is the only woman-fish that it is pointless.
Boland finishes the poem the truth of how no person can completely go against nature, “a brightening, a light, a light,/and how in my loomy cold, my greens,/still she moons in me.” Here the author is saying that she is in a “loomy cold” and that inside her there is a “light” that is the eclipse from earlier. All the societal female parts of her that she blocked out are still inside of her and like an eclipse the sun will show again when the moon moves on. She will become “female” again but according to the last line the “moons” still inside of her and she is still capable of changing into a fish.
The author’s ultimate point is against the role that females have been cast in society. Not their household role, or the idea of marriage but the reproductive idea of motherhood and the male views on sex and objectivity. The way this poem presents the parts of women as things to be deflated or “flattened” expresses the male view of women as ass, tits and legs. This poem seeks to display the fact that women are often viewed as the sum of their bodies while also showing that they are more than the best body part they possess. If women and men all looked the same and sex was about reproduction not looks then the intelligence and other features of the species would be valued.
However, as the author points out, it is impossible in our current state to ever completely move beyond the physical form. Even as a fish she was after the shimmering scales and beauty so she was incapable of wanting pure sexlessness. The[BJ7] poem implies with the ending that there is no pure sexless state because when she was in the cold waters, viewed only for her intelligence, she still felt the sun coming out and when the sun came back out she felt the moon hidden inside her. So to be female is to be torn between the sexual prowess of your body and the mental capacity of your intelligence. Though she implies that this choice is one that the female has the freedom to make, the power to control.
It is in the hands of the woman how she wants to be seen and what part of her she wants to “use.” Is she the woman or the fish? It is her transformation from woman to fish as she moves through life that gives women power where men can only see what is presented to them; the fish or the woman. Like the metaphor of the eclipse there is either a sun, a moon, or neither for men, while all three exists simultaneously inside of every woman. She is constantly changing, but also changing back because, as the author points out it is lonely to be a fish.
Even though every woman can become a fish it is lonely to be one because if becoming a fish is like an eclipse than the reader is to assume that is it rare. This means that women very seldom choose their intelligence over their sex. This could be another one of the author’s comments on society this time directed at the females in society and how they prolong the stereotype of a patriarchal society. This stereotype allows for women to get paid less in the workplace for doing the same amount of work.
The author of this poem is Irish and Irish women’s rights are different than American or British women’s rights. Ireland has always been connected with the Catholic Church and has been considered the most repressive country in Europe when it comes to women. The Catholic rule leaves little freedom for the female sex and gives most of the leeway to the men. The church provided and ideological basis for sexual repression with the idea of no sex before marriage and late marriages[BJ8]. Saying that sex outside of marriage was evil and holding women more accountable than men. It also failed to provide an economic role for women leaving them as mothers and wives for centuries.
In the atmosphere of religious repression it would be very hard for a woman to break out of her shell and consider becoming a ‘fish’ for very long. The entire society is ruled by one religion and the women of Ireland also buy into the repression of that religion. It is the ideas of having all three stages of the eclipse inside themselves that stands out here. They buy into the religion but they are also aware of what they are capable of that the Church doesn’t support. Being a moon and a sun at once because they believe in society, sex, and intelligence. The fact that this poet expresses that all Irish women are secretly unhappy with the role the Church has given them is a very big statement to be making in the times.
Also the amount of anti-sexual content in this poem is very interesting considering that it is a Irish poem and written just as the Catholic church was loosing power and women were exploring there sexual power. This poem is primarily about not wanting to be seen as a sexual object however in a society where women had been prevented from expressing their sexual freedom for so long it seems out of place. To say that one wants ones sexual organs to disappear and to flatten is strange when they now have the ability to sleep with men before marriage. Perhaps the author is seeing the negative side of sleeping around with men and how it can degrade women or perhaps she simply believes that it is not enough freedom. Yes women should be alloweoud to sleep with whom they chose, and have sex before marriage but shouldn’t their partners also see them as more than a body or sexual object[BJ9]?
Interestingly isn’t her protest the same as the Churche’s? The Church believes that men and women should only have sex when they are married and not sleep around outside of marriage because marriage is when you are in love and promised to God. Similarly the author wishes that men and women could see each other as fish[BJ10] because they would only see each other’s true traits not their sexual ones and thus promise a real love. Though they seem at odds because the Church held women back in Irish society the Author seems to not agree with the movement of sexual freedom or at least the free use of female bodies that comes with it.
Another interesting view on this poem that is specific to Ireland is the difference in the term fish. Is fish simply a sexless object in Irish culture? No. Fish are a life source that have supported many generations of Irish people. They are also connected with Irish fishing men not women, however the mermaids, or fish themselves are considered women-like all inanimate objects they are referred to as ‘she’. Thinking of fish as the female life source of Ireland puts an entirely different spin on this poem. Rather than thinking about the fish as her sexless state of intelligence she is simply in a state of ultimate reproductive and sexual heights. As a fish she is the bringer of life in a way that is not about her body parts or sex with men[BJ11].
In Conclusion, this poem and it’s metaphors display a time of change in Ireland and a great deal of discussion over what it is to be a woman. The author is struggling to be equal with men, societies society’s view of herself and what she knows herself to be. This poem is about transformation and change and how it never really works out. People can’t change into fish not because they don’t want to but because society won’t let them. The woman in ultimately everything that a woman should be, though she hates those parts of her self for being recognized, and more than women are allowed to be, though it is rarely seen.
[BJ1]you should probably change metaphors here
[BJ2]A good question to bring up—the poem marvelously answers by recreating the female body through an act of will
[BJ3]either a misspelling or lapsed syntax
[BJ4]use another word
[BJ5]perhaps change woman to female
[BJ6]a great sentence, beautifully clarifying
[BJ7]could we imagine a genderless beauty?
[BJ8]late marriages might have had more to do with rural life and inheritance laws, where the male heir waited longer to marry, and this produced marriages with younger women, older men. This may be seen as a consequence of general influence of th Church on Ireland, but probably not an intended result.
[BJ9]perhaps the poem expresses a wish to ‘get out of the market’ for a while
[BJ10]here you would want to suggest how the poem invites a parallel poem, seeing the male similarly transformed
[BJ11]transformations are common in Irish myth, including changing into fish (and back again)