18 pages • 36 minutes read
Grace Chua(Love Song, With Two Goldfish)
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Goldfish
Despite their ubiquity as childhood pets, multiple cultures have historically interpreted goldfish as symbols of affluence and good fortune. The Chinese people domesticated goldfish approximately 2,000 years ago for exclusive use by the Song Dynasty in their ornamental ponds and tanks (Mohr, Kylie. “Goldfish Aren't the Ho-Hum Fish You Thought They Were.” National Geographic, The National Geographic Partners, LLC). Goldfish continued to represent material wealth after the breed’s introduction to the United States in 1876 (Waycott, Laurel J. “Reflective Creatures: Goldfish, Affluence, and Affect in Gilded Age New York.” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 54, no. 2-3, 2020). Many New Yorkers and other Americans collected the breed at this time, appreciating its rarity and its scale color.
Goldfish began to lose its luster as the Glided Age wore on and into the early 20th Century, and the goldfish is Chua’s poem appear as unremarkable creatures confined to a mere fishbowl. Goldfish are a socially neutral species, able to thrive both in schools and alone. The relationship between the goldfish in Chua’s poem results from this proximity as they are “bounded by round walls” (Line 7) with “nowhere else to go” (Line 3).
Although the gold-colored scales of the goldfish present an image full of symbolic richness, the male goldfish still dreams of chasing after “pearls” (Line 16), another symbol of wealth. He searches for something greater than himself that he hopes will add value to his existence and quantify his experience with the female goldfish into something meaningful.
Pearls & Stars
While only present in one line of the poem, pearls represent the male goldfish’s desire for more than what his life in the bowl can offer. The male goldfish imagines a prosperous future with his lover that can exist after the couple confides in one another and after they escape the fishbowl. They will seek their fortune in the ocean, where they will “[d]ive for pearls / like stars” (Lines 15-17).
The University of Michigan’s Symbolism Dictionary lists a long life, fertility, and uncorrupted perfection as meanings ascribed to the pearl. Through collaboratively diving for pearls, the goldfish would metaphorically cement their relationship as a life-long partnership. The pearl also represents “hidden knowledge” and “spiritual wisdom,” especially in Eastern philosophies like Taoism and Buddhism (Protas, Allison. “Pearl.” Dictionary of Symbolism, Edited by Geoff Brown et al., University of Michigan: Fantasy and Science Fiction Website).
The comparison of pearls to stars also suggests that, through their relationship, the goldfish are seeking to learn how to endow their days with purpose. Their relationship may be actually be a knowledge quest, if the pearls represent what stars also represent. Stars organized into constellations, after all, have long guided navigation practices.
Bodies of Water
Both goldfish desire a break from their lives in the fishbowl, and the speaker emphasizes this desire by contrasting the freshwater bowl in which the goldfish live with the ocean of the male goldfish’s fantasy.
In the first two stanzas set in the fishbowl, Chua does not directly portray water as the environment in which the goldfish characters live. Her closest reference is the male goldfish’s status as “a drifter, always / floating around” (Lines 1-2). The shared environment draws both goldfish into a romance, but the verbs “drift” and “float” denote a passivity in both the male goldfish and the water in which he lives. He does not move against the water or even think about his own position in the water; he merely appears to exist in it.
The speaker offers concrete details about the actual fishbowl, but no details are available regarding the water’s characteristics. The bowl has a rounded shape and small rocks rest on its floor, but the reader learns nothing about the water’s temperature and clarity, for example. As a result, the water feels forgettable despite its obvious presence.
In contrast to the body of water contained in the fish bowl, the speaker dramatically illustrates the male goldfish’s imaginings of the ocean to enhance the dissatisfactory nature of the fishbowl. She calls attention to the body of water’s presence by naming it in the poem and by mentioning the “waves” (Line 13). The ocean can provide a “submarine silence” (Line 14) that enables closeness and intimacy as well as activity and stimulation. Ironically, the goldfish live in close quarters within the confines of the fishbowl, but they cannot sustain true intimacy.
After the relationship ends, the male goldfish succumbs once again to the bowl water’s quiet tedium. The male goldfish “drinks” (Line 19) the water in, “drowns” (Line 20) in it, feels his heart “sink” (Line 21) in it. All of these verbs that describe the male goldfish’s response to the breakdown of his relationship require liquid, so his depressed state and his environment must be linked. Finally, the clarity of the water and the bowl leaves the male goldfish only with the pastime of staring “emptily through the glass” (Line 22).
