Behaviour of Fish in an Egyptian Tea Garden by Keith Douglas

This is a commentary/ essay/ analysis (whatever you want to call it) written for my Advanced Placement Senior literature class. This is an commentary on the poem's structure, diction, theme, and the author's purpose. I received a "B" for a grade, which I think is bullshit because I truly think I deserved an "A" for this paper. Well, whatever, I couldn't be more pleased with the effort and time I have put into this paper. Enjoy it!

As a white stone draws down the fish
she on the seafloor of the afternoon
draws down men's glances and their cruel wish
for love. Slyly her red lip on the spoon

slips-in a morsel of ice-cream; her hands
white as a milky stone, white submarine
fronds, sink with spread fingers, lean
along the table, carmined at the ends.

A cotton magnate, an important fish
with great eyepouches and a golden mouth
through the frail reefs of furniture swims out
and idling, suspended, stays to watch.

A crustacean old man clamped to his chair
sits coldly near her and might see
her charms through fissures where the eyes should be
or else his teeth are parted in a stare.

Captain on leave, a lean dark mackerel
lies in the offing, turns himself and looks
through currents of sound. The flat-eyed flatfish sucks
on a straw, staring from its repose, laxly.

And gallants in shoals swim up and lag,
circling and passing near the white attraction;
sometimes pausing, opening a conversation:
fish pause so to nibble or tug.

Now the ice-cream is finished,
is paid for. The fish swim off on business:
and she sits alone at the table, a white stone
useless except to a collector, a rich man.
Keith Douglas

“Behaviour of Fish in an Egyptian Tea Garden” by Keith Douglas is about a beautiful woman and her power to seduce, manipulate men of any age. The author uses metaphors and similes by comparing the woman “as a white stone” and men as fishes “A cotton magnate/…A crustacean” to show how men’s behavior are like of any other animal species or as predictable as fish. The author keeps the imagery of a large aquatic marine environment to consistently illustrate the relationship between that of an aquatic marine life to the behavior of men, “fish”, towards a single, attractive woman. This constant, predictable “behavior” pattern could be exploited to manipulate and control if someone, the woman, wishes to.

“Behaviour of Fish in an Egyptian Tea Garden” consists of seven stanzas each with four lines in length. A narrative poem, the poem is a documentary containing with two speakers, one is the narrator the other is a character introduced later in the poem. Douglas doesn’t have a structural rhyme scheme throughout his poem. They would change with each stanza. Case in point, stanza one has an ABAB rhyming structure, stanza two has an ABBA, and stanza three has an ABBC. In addition, the other stanzas that follow have either no rhyming scheme, stanza 5, or continue the inconsistent rhyming pattern. However, there is some noticeable consistency in the poem. All the lines in each of the stanzas have a moderate amount of words, each with 9-10 syllables.

The poem could be arranged into four segments. The first segment introduces the “slyly” woman and her deliberate position as “she draws down the fish”. The second segment introduces the second speaker of the poem which the most “important fish”. The third introduces the men who gaze on the woman’s beauty. The fourth switches back to the original speaker of the poem and concludes the woman’s choice to which one of the men she chooses or does not choose. The tone changes as well with each of the section to convey the pleasant image of the woman, the admiration of the “important fish”, the predictable men who were lured into the bait, and the blunt conclusion.

The first stanza introduces the setting to illustrate the imagery of the poem and the woman’s plot to lure men to her: “As a white stone draws down the fish/…draws down men’s glances and their cruel wish/ For love.” The voice stays consistent for this section of the poem. The tone uses devious words to describe the woman’s deliberate plan she has for the men: “Cruel wish/…slyly.” The author chooses to place the woman on the “seafloor of the afternoon” to demonstrate the woman’s outward appearance as well as her intentions. Choosing the “afternoon” as a nature image on the time of day shows her physical outward appearance with a warm, bright image, but by seating her on the “seafloor” it illustrates her true, shady objectives planned out for the men. The stanza ends with how the woman “slyly” has her lip on the spoon carefully, savoring the ice cream, presented in the second stanza, as she eats it.

The second stanza continues the thought of the last line of the previous stanza. She eats the ice cream in a seductive manner: “she slips in a morsel of ice-cream”. The following lines describe the woman’s physical appearance in further detail and the way she is positioned as she sits in an enticing manner: “her hands/white as a milky stone, white submarine/fronds”. The woman reveals her soft hands with her perfect “milky white stone” body. The author speaks of the way her body is presented to establish what women have to do to catch a man’s attention. “With spread fingers, lean/ along the table, carmined at the ends” She knows how to seduce these men with just a few exposures to her body such as her “carmined” painted fingernails. The author keeps the same tone from stanza one using words to show the woman’s delicacy of her appearance: “slips/…milky stone/…lean/…carmined”.

The third stanza introduces the important fish and the new speaker of the poem: “A cotton magnate, an important fish”. The tone shifts from an admiring, sweet, pleasant voice to an idolizing, admiring voice with rich words: “Great eyepouches and golden mouth”. This “magnate” fish is obviously more experienced with a “golden mouth” describing his vocabulary and usage of words. Also, the great eye pouches suggest he is a man of a much older age who has seen many “great” things making him more experienced than the other men. Apparently, this man wants the woman as well, but unlike the other hastily men, he will be watching and observing this woman without doing anything until the last stanza: “idling, suspending”. The author spends and dedicates an entire stanza to this one fish whereas the following stanza the author speaks little of the other fishes to emphasize the importance of this one fish and his affect he will have on the woman on the final stanza. It is possible this rich man knows what she is trying to do to the men and decides to “stays to watch”. The narration switches from the original speaker to this man as he observers the other men.

The fourth stanza begins with the introduction of an old man, who has noticed her. The author uses the species of “crustacean” to describe the old man’s physical appearance to suggest his body is skinny and bony as if he had an exoskeleton like those of a crustacean’s. The author introduces the “crustacean old man” to prove how even elderly men of all ages will notice beauty in a woman. The poet portrays another one of men’s behavior through this old man. The old man wants to talk to this woman but can’t speak up to her and make conversation probably because of the fact she is so beautiful and it frightens him: He sits “clamped to his chair/ sits coldly near her”. He continues to explain this behavior pattern of men showing how he “might see/ her charms through fissures” and attempt to speak to her. However, “his teeth are parted” to show how even if he tries to figure out her charms, her turn-ons, but he refuses to speak up. This leaves this old man, like other men, immobilized and left to do nothing more but “parted in a stare” to gazed upon the woman’s beauty.

Stanza five describes the three more different types of men who are attracted to this woman. The first is a powerful man strong willed like those of a “captain on leave”, the second is a young, masculine man like “a lean dark mackerel”, and the third is a plain, boring man, like a “flat-eyed flatfish”. The author introduces a new set of men who notice her. Once more, the speaker examines another typical behavior of men to which they watch woman from afar “in the offing”. Unlike the “crustacean old man”, the men who are mentioned in this stanza, are more threatened by this woman and watch her from a more further position away from her. At this point, the tone has shifted from once an idolizing tone of the important fish to a ridicule of these men’s behavior. However, the author will introduce a more direct and brave side of men who will attempt to approach this woman in the next stanza.

In stanza six, the speaker introduces the courageous group of men: “gallants in shoals” who will attempt to draw the female’s attention. Although they are braver than the previous men before them, the men mention here, delay and are unsure whether or not to approach her: “Swim up and lag”. The speaker goes into further detail of the bold men of how some of those who attempted to speak with her either are “circling” or “passing near the white attraction”, or “sometimes pausing, opening a conversation”. The last line, line four, refers back to line three to describe why men “sometimes pause”. “Fish pause so to nibble or tug” the analogy compares the metaphoric relationship of fish to bait and to men to woman, where some men like to approach woman slowly and have small talk, like a fish nibbles on bait, the other kind of men who like to approach woman directly and powerful, or like how some fish tug when responded to bait. The tone in this stanza is both humorous and scornful with word usage such as “gallants in shoals, lag, pausing, nibble, and tug”. The author does a fine job of showing how ridiculous and humorous it is to be reluctant to speak to a woman, even if she is extremely beautiful. It just makes men become a mold of how a man might behave when introduced or exposed to a woman.

The final stanza develops the irony in the poem, bringing the poem to an end. Here, the narration switches back the original narrator from the opening two stanzas. When the reader comes to realize that the woman hasn’t chose any of the men who approached her and “now the ice cream is finished,/ is paid for” which the reader could infer that all she did was have one or all of the men paid for her ice cream. The tone changes, yet again, to a more punctual and direct to show the bitterness towards the woman’s actions towards the men. This helps establish the cold-bloodedness of the woman. “She sits alone at the table, a white stone” probably refers to the woman’s relationship status with other men. She is “useless except to a collector, a rich man”; the rich man refers to the cotton magnate fish introduced in stanza three. The irony is developed to where throughout the poem it was supposedly a study of men towards a beautiful woman, but in reality it’s the study of a particular kind of woman to different types of men and a rich man. The woman’s shallowness had her choose wealth over personality or good looks.

The poem, “Behaviour of Fish in an Egyptian Tea Garden”, is about a beautiful woman and the men who adore her, but in the end she rejects the men for a wealthy man. The author uses large amounts imagery, metaphors and similes, and irony to convey both the behavior of men and woman. By keeping the marine imagery the author can easily examine and explain the behavior patterns to his readers effectively. The tone throughout the stanzas changed to convey the moods and emotions towards the characters, the actions, and the ideas presented by the author. The metaphoric comparison of men to fish as if men were a “species” was a great example for Douglas to prove his point that even the most complex of animal species are still basic and predictable as any other any animal, such as a fish.

Word Count: 1,809