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.
Themes
Isolation
According to the speaker of the poem, both goldfish experience a sense of isolation, and the speaker of the poem explores this theme both within the context of the goldfishes’ romantic relationship and within the context of their life in the physical environment of the fishbowl. The reader must suspend their sense of disbelief in order to appreciate this particular message of the poem and to understand that loneliness is an unavoidable aspect of both the human condition and, perhaps, the piscine condition.
The speaker of the poem establishes the male goldfish’s sense of loneliness and isolation early in the poem. The male goldfish has a companion in the fishbowl, which suggests that his sense of isolation appears to be more an existential state of mind than a literal one. It is in this lonely state that the reader both meets the male goldfish and leaves him at the end of the poem; though he eventually starts a relationship with his female companion, their relationship does not last.
The female goldfish literally shares her companion’s state of isolation as they live in the same fishbowl, yet her attempts to engage with the male goldfish suggest she has stronger social impulses than her lover. Despite this possibility that she has a more outgoing temperament, she too ends up alone when the relationship ends. The reader learns that her desire for more than what the fishbowl and the male goldfish are able to offer leaves her, once again, completely isolated.
The poet’s choice to express the theme of isolation through the story of a failed romance between two goldfish confined in the same fishbowl is both poignant and humorous. For some readers, it may be easier to consider the notion of existential loneliness as something that afflicts all creatures, human and otherwise.
The Dark Side of Romance
One important theme in "(love song, with two goldfish)" concerns the dark side of romance, a human experience that art forms like films and novels often idealize. In the poem, the male goldfish is "a drifter" (Line 1), and he finds direction in life only when he "floats" (Line 2) towards the female goldfish. Just as many humans idealize love relationships, the male goldfish idealizes the romance he finds with his female companion and seeks from her some relief from his restlessness. The male goldfish’s eventual disappointment is inevitable, as no lover can provide solutions to life’s irresolvable problems. Chua deconstructs the notion of romance as a salve throughout her poem, revealing the emotional dangers that romance can hold when expectations exceed the limitations of reality. She shows that entering a relationship as a means to an end is not sustainable, and worse, it can cause emotional and psychological harm.
The male goldfish’s view of the romantic relationship as a method of existential relief becomes especially clear in the third stanza. When the male goldfish talks about his pearl diving aspirations, the thought manifests as a sentence fragment with no pronouns: “Dive for pearls / like stars” (Lines 16-17). This syntax demonstrates that he dreams more of action than of intimacy. While the male goldfish expresses a desire to know the female goldfish more in the previous line, it appears that he only wants that intimacy once they live in the ocean. Instead, he places greater emphasis on activities than discussions, bringing up two hobbies to the one mention of discussion and making it seem like an afterthought over a central draw.
The Risks of Binary Thinking
The presence of opposites throughout Chua's poem "(love song, with two goldfish)" offers readers insight into the theme of binary thinking and its inherent risks. The central binaries in the poem are male and female, the expansive ocean and the small fishbowl, and single and couple. The repetition of this pattern of two contributes to the theme of isolation and enhances the reader’s appreciation of the experience of a single individual in search of a partner. By incorporating the pattern of two into the poem, Chua funnels the reader into the goldfishes' perception that their sole companion will solve all their issues (see Theme: Isolation and Theme: The Dark Side of Romance).
The risks of binary thinking emerge as the goldfish invest hope in each other as a potential solution for their numbing isolation. When the male goldfish cannot lead a quest for "a life / beyond the / (bowl)" (Lines 26-28), the female goldfish terminates their companionship because she thinks happiness is available only outside the bowl. The male goldfish cannot provide this happiness, so, to the female, there is no more value in the relationship and it must end.
The male goldfish also falls into this all-or-nothing mindset since he glamorizes the ocean as an alternative to the bowl and grows depressed after the break-up. His relationship status dictates his sense of purpose. When the male goldfish is in a relationship with the female goldfish, he feels "bowled over" (Line 12) with joy, but he suffers when the relationship ends.
Chua also exposes binaries as dangerous and self-destructive when the protagonists in the poem engage in all-or-nothing thinking. Neither goldfish believes happiness is possible living in the fishbowl, nor is there evidence in the poem that they try to understand each other on a deeper level. Therefore, it escapes their understanding that they could work together to make the fishbowl more inhabitable. To the pair of goldfish, it is the outside world or the fishbowl, and the failure of their relationship means that neither goldfish can be happy as a result of their binary thinking. Both goldfish exacerbate their loneliness and diminish their opportunities to forge a better future because they persist in their binary thinking, which allows their worldview to remain black-and-white.
