Question

Which three lines in this excerpt from Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish" use assonance?

Answer 1

2, 3, and 4

Step-by-step explanation:

The lines you were given are the following:

1. He was speckled with barnacles,
2. fine rosettes of lime, / and infested
3. with tiny white sea-lice, / and underneath two or three / rags of green weed hung down.
4. While his gills were breathing in / the terrible oxygen / --the frightening gills,
5. fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly—
6. I thought of the coarse white flesh / packed in like feathers, / the big bones and the little bones

Assonance is a figure of speech in which the same or similar vowels are repeated within nearby words. Poets use it to create a rhythm and lyrical effect.

Lines that contain assonance are the second, third, and fourth ones.

• In the second line, we have the repetition of I sound in fine and lime. Another example of assonance in the given line is the repetition of the same vowel sound in words and and infested (although letters used to mark these sounds are different).
• In the third line, we have the following assonance examples: tiny-white-lice, underneath-three, green-weed.
• In the fourth line, the examples are: his-gills-in, terrible-oxygen, frightening-gills.