Poetry Analysis #1 "Flounder"
The poem “Flounder”, by Natasha Trethewey, uses symbolism to describe the author's struggle of being a mixed race person. She writes about a past experience with her grandmother, when they were fishing, and compares the way the fish looks, to the way she is viewed by other people.
The poem starts out with her and her grandmother sitting by the water, and her grandmother gives her a hat and tells her to put it on. Her grandma also tells her, “You ’bout as white as your dad, and you gone stay like that”(3-4). I believe that her grandmother gave her the hat to cover up her face, so attention wouldn't be drawn to them by people who pass by. When the author was growing up, it was very unusual to see a black woman with someone who could pass for white, from the outside looking in.
Eventually, they catch a flounder. Her grandmother tells her how you can tell what kind of fish it is. “A flounder, she said, and you can tell ’cause one of its sides is black. The other side is white, she said”(23-25). I believe that the author’s grandmother took her fishing specifically so she would be able to tell her granddaughter this, without having to say exactly what she meant bluntly. One half of her granddaughter will be black like her, but she is half of her father too, so the other side of her will always be white.
The author seems like she was conflicted about what race that she identified with, when she was younger. She writes, “I stood there watching that fish flip-flop, switch sides with every jump”(27-28). I think she was conflicted because she looked different than how she thought she should feel, or how her grandmother might have wanted her to look. She might've felt either more black, or white, depending on if she was with her grandmother and mother, or her father. I think that if the author felt that she looked like more of an equal representation of her racial background on the outside, or maybe if she looked more black than white, she might not have felt as confused about her identity.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52891
The poem “Flounder”, by Natasha Trethewey, uses symbolism to describe the author's struggle of being a mixed race person. She writes about a past experience with her grandmother, when they were fishing, and compares the way the fish looks, to the way she is viewed by other people.
The poem starts out with her and her grandmother sitting by the water, and her grandmother gives her a hat and tells her to put it on. Her grandma also tells her, “You ’bout as white as your dad, and you gone stay like that”(3-4). I believe that her grandmother gave her the hat to cover up her face, so attention wouldn't be drawn to them by people who pass by. When the author was growing up, it was very unusual to see a black woman with someone who could pass for white, from the outside looking in.
Eventually, they catch a flounder. Her grandmother tells her how you can tell what kind of fish it is. “A flounder, she said, and you can tell ’cause one of its sides is black. The other side is white, she said”(23-25). I believe that the author’s grandmother took her fishing specifically so she would be able to tell her granddaughter this, without having to say exactly what she meant bluntly. One half of her granddaughter will be black like her, but she is half of her father too, so the other side of her will always be white.
The author seems like she was conflicted about what race that she identified with, when she was younger. She writes, “I stood there watching that fish flip-flop, switch sides with every jump”(27-28). I think she was conflicted because she looked different than how she thought she should feel, or how her grandmother might have wanted her to look. She might've felt either more black, or white, depending on if she was with her grandmother and mother, or her father. I think that if the author felt that she looked like more of an equal representation of her racial background on the outside, or maybe if she looked more black than white, she might not have felt as confused about her identity.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52891