Elizabeth Bishop and Rudolfo Anaya use examples of imagery and diction to compare and contrast the different ways the fish and the carp from Bless Me, Ultima a being admired. The fish is described as an uglier figure unlike the "beautiful" "golden" carp. The use of figurative language describes the way in which "The Fish" and the carp are being admired.

Both of the authors use imagery in an effective way to describe what makes each of the fish so admirable. In "The Fish," the author wrote about the fish's "brown skin" and how it was "speckled with barnacles," "crisp with blood... that [could] cut so badly." In complete contrast with the description of the carp's "golden scales" and the way the "sunlight glistened off" of them. The fish's "weaponlike" lip "hung five old pieces of fish line" that were the fish's version of "medals" from each battle. The carp's versions of medals were "a couple of small carp" that followed it. Even though Bishop's usage of imagery in "The Fish" portrayed the "battered" condition of the fish, the speaker still "admired his sullen face." Anaya's usage of imagery in the passages from Bless Me, Ultima described Antonio's "astonishment" with the "beautiful form [that] glided through the blue waters."

The author's use of diction in "The Fish" and in the passages from Bless Me, Ultima shows the respect that each speaker had for their fish. The "golden" carp was said to have been a "pagan god" and therefore was much larger and much more "beautiful" than the other carp. The golden carp was a "huge, beautiful form" versus the fish that was "infested with tiny white sea-lice." Being that the fish was only mortal versus the immortal golden carp. The speaker from "The Fish" "stared and stared and victory filled up" just as Antonio felt as though he "had witnessed a miraculous thing."

Elizabeth Bishop and Rudolfo Anaya's usage of figurative language in "The Fish" and the passages from Bless Me, Ultima express the different views that speaker and Antonio had felt, but the same reaction they had for both fish. Both the speaker and Antonio showed admiration and "awe."