Final answer:
Bradbury's comparison of war to a fish in "2026: The Million-Year Picnic" highlights the elusive nature of war and the characters' detachment and inability to fully comprehend it.
Step-by-step explanation:
In "2026: The Million-Year Picnic," Bradbury utilizes a simile comparing war to a fish to convey a sense of the unknown and the detachment from reality that characters in the story feel. War, much like a fish, is elusive and can be difficult to comprehend fully from the outside. The simile emphasizes the characters' isolation and their attempts to understand something that is ultimately incomprehensible to them because war, being such a complex and all-encompassing event, can never be fully grasped by those not directly involved. Moreover, the comparison may also suggest that, as a fish is a creature of the water, war is an element in which the characters cannot survive or thrive, reinforcing their sense of alienation and impotence.