However, towards the end of the poem, readers were given a glimpse of hope from the Voice, whose awakening from the sleep -- that is, desire to die -- had been interrupted, and his reflections on his disillusionment were once again converted to hope and possibly, continuing perseverance to struggle in life. In contrast to Frost's dominant theme of disillusionment in life, Bishop's "The Fish" is a poem that centers on one's perseverance to pursue a meaningful life despite its hardships and suffering. Life was depicted in general, and the symbol of the fish was utilized in order to provide more meaningful and effective demonstration of life struggle. Life struggle mirrored through the fish symbol gave power to Bishop's imagery of life as both dangerous and wonderful, in the same manner that the sea becomes an essential yet dangerous environment for a fish.

The first lines of the poem are vital to the establishment of the message of the poem because we, as readers, are able to interpret her descriptions and opinions about the fish as the narrator's subjective judgment and a reflection and comparison of her own personal experience and struggles in life. The lines, "He didn't fight / He hadn't fought at all / He hung a grunting weight..." uses the element of parallelism, wherein the poet emphasizes the importance of the fish's lack of attempt to struggle, which is in contrast to the natural reaction to animals when subjected to such a situation.

Thus, by describing the fact that the fish hadn't struggled after being caught, the interpretation was that the fish's actions were one of resignation and acceptance of his fate (that is, to die in the hands of the narrator)....

Simile is used in the succeeding lines: "... his brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper / and its pattern of darker brown / was like wallpaper... stained and lost through age...." The fish's seemingly old appearance is a foreshadowing of the eventual realization of the narrator that the fish had been through all kinds of hardships and sufferings. Eventually into the poem, it was shown that instead of being a 'disillusioned' creature, the fish actually embodied life struggle per se, a fighter who battled life's hardships and challenges.
This realization became apparent towards the last part of the poem, wherein an important detail about the fish's life was revealed: "... And then I saw / that from his lower lip / grim, wet, and weaponlike / hung five old pieces of fish-line / or four and a wire leader... with all their five big hooks / grown firmly in his mouth." In this pivotal point in the narrator's realization of the fish's life, the narrator realized that instead of giving up, the fish fought on, and its initially perceived surrender to life was but a simple ploy that the fish had, a "mark" of its being a fighter and survivor of life.

In sum, "After Apple-Picking" and "The Fish" are poems that looked into the different scenarios and interpretations that both Frost and Bishop had depicted in order to effectively illustrate the theme of life struggle. While Frost primarily showed disillusionment in life and Bishop's conveyed hopefulness and perseverance, these differences converge to an important, similar point: despite life's hardships, people will always have room for hope, a turning point that would motivate them to start over and continue…