The Polygamist Fish and Bird Opening Sequence
The opening sequence of The Polygamist shows a bird flying through the air and a fish swimming in water circling around the screen and then the bird devours the fish…
Those familiar with the metaphor may immediately recognise the visual representation of the saying “A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they live”
It foreshadows incompatibility and how people from different worlds can fall in love but they cant or shouldn’t stay gether.
The bird and the fish… where would they live? If they choose water, the bird will drown. If they choose air, the fish will suffocate…
In Episode 8 of The Polygamist Joyce and her friend have a conversation which mentions this very conundrum although Joyce ridicules the idea that Jonasi is a fish and that she is the bird…
The scene which comes just after Joyce bought a gun and tried to shoot her husband, as foreshadowed by the bird which devours the fish, Joyce is headed down a path where ultimately if anyone is going to be dying outside of their element, its not going to be her.
Curiously enough, Jonasi is wilfully oblivious and in his mind, the only logical explanation of a woman cracking under pressure is self-destruction, which is why he thinks Joyce was trying to kill herself, completely missing the fact that she is transitioning from prey to the predator of a woman scorned.
The juxtaposition of Jonasi’s delusion with Joyce’s awakening makes the metaphor even more tragic, he is living in denial while she is rewriting the terms of survival… the very same denial that led ti his not taking his medication…
Had you picked up on this symbolism?
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