Analysis Of Poor Fish By Alberto Moravia

Coincidentally, love and judgement come in a variety of forms. Society has set ‘standards’ on people, on the way they look and act. For example, there could be two odd-looking people who are in a relationship. Some may say “Why are they together? They do not look good together,” or create unnecessary rumors and assumptions. An outsider’s judgement should never negatively affect the behavior of a couple’s relationship. This idea is portrayed in two heartwarming short stories, “Poor Fish” and “The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband.” In the short story “Poor Fish” by Alberto Moravia, a man who has a low self-esteem meets a woman named Ida, who instills a lot of self-confidence and love in the man. Another couple, who symbolizes ‘perfection,’ spots …show more content…
Societal views have a huge influence on one’s thinking because some have the insecurity of being judged by others. In “Poor Fish,” Moravia introduces a ‘perfect couple,’ symbolized by normal society and are a foil of the protagonist and his girlfriend, Ida. The ‘odd couple’ and the ‘normal couple’ are attending a circus performance, where the protagonist notices the normal couple staring and laughing at them. This bothers the protagonist, but as the show continues, the ridicule begins to worsen as they begin to laugh harder and whisper critical judgement to one another. After the show, Poor Fish decides to confront the couple and ask why they were judging him and his girlfriend during the show, and their response was, “… we were laughing at a frog pretending to be an ox” (Moravia). The simile made between the protagonist and the frog is degrading because he is comparing a small, weak animal, which is in reference to the odd man’s physical appearance to a tough, burly animal. This statement is called pre judgement, a judgement that is created with the information at hand. The couples did not know each other, and the normal couple began to ridicule someone else’s physical appearance. For example, one philosophical paper stated, there are “ … two broad classes… "before-the-fact" moral judgments [and] … "after-the-fact" moral judgments… [Before-the-fact judgement] … based on the best information available at the time as to what the moral landscape holds and what its future shape will be” (“Moral Judgement”). This moral judgement is neither good or bad because it is innate within a human being, but the results of this thought through actions determines its appropriateness.