Analysis Of Love Song With Two Goldfish

In (love song, with two goldfish), Grace Chua presents both the build up to and the breakup of the relationship between to goldfish. However, through direct parallels with human behaviour, Chua represents the flaws on the human condition through an extended metaphor, personifying goldfish. Chua particularly represents the mindlessness of humans, our ingenious emotions and the way we feel despair. Whilst Chua is using fish, she draws direct parallels to human emotions and behaviours, through her use of the extended metaphor, the reader can form a more objective opinion of how bizarre our behaviour really can be. The mindlessness of the human condition is expressed primarily by Chua through her structure and the extended metaphor. Chua portrays …show more content…
The second and third stanzas are the two that focuses on the two falling in love. Through placing enjambement here, Chua emphasises just how mindless the process of falling in love can be. In regard to the extended metaphor, humans perceive goldfish as mindless animals, incapable of feeling love or any form of emotion. As Chua chose to use goldfish, she expresses how mindless love is and how anybody is capable of falling into it. This, however, is contrary to the typical view that love is complex and difficult to understand. Nevertheless, Chua still presents the feeling of love as difficult when it goes “belly up”, but not in terms of comprehension. The reason was simple, “she wanted… a life beyond the bowl”, a life that he could not give her. The extended metaphor also makes the reader reflect on the fact that the fish have no choice but to be like this, …show more content…
Chau uses the repeated caesura to show how disrupted his life now feels. However, Chau adds a sense of comedy through the similes she uses. Comparing the fish’s heart to a fish creates humour in its simplicity. Furthermore, stones do not drink and so the second simile is illogical. Chua also creates humour in the context of the poem, making the male fish’s despair seem even more dramatic. However, this comic tone represents that whilst the fish feels he is in a state of despair, the consequences are not really that drastic. Chau furthers this in the context of the whole poem. Whilst the fish is “always/ floating around her”, it is important to note he genuinely “has nowhere else to go”. With no one else there, Chua makes it appear less like that the fish chooses to love her, but he has no other option. Furthermore, he was longing for her before she would even “take some notice” of him. As he had no opinion of her, it is once again difficult to believe that his emotions were genuine. However, at the end of the penultimate stanza, the fish once again mirrors human behaviours, slightly hidden behind comedy, as he “drowns those sorrows, stares emptily through the glass”. Through drawing another parallel to human behaviours, Chua reminds the reader that whilst the fish’s actions may appear comic and illogical, they are not incredibly distinct to human actions. Whilst the fish