What do Rumble Fish symbolize in Rumble Fish?
The "Rumble Fish" that this question refers to is asking about the Siamese fighting fish that the Motorcycle Boy likes so much from Mr. Dobson's pet store. The Siamese fighting fish have to be kept apart from each other because otherwise they would fight to the death:
They try to kill each other. If you leaned a mirror against the bowl they'd kill themselves trying to fight their own reflection.
The fish and their behavior are symbolic of the warring gang members and their constant affinity toward using violence against one another. Rusty-James and the gang members are like the fighting fish. He is a gang member, and he fights different gang members simply because they exist and are within sight of him and his territory. It's what he does, and it's all that he knows how to do. It's a part of genetic fiber in the same...
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way that the fish have no other outlook on life. It's normal.
The Rumble Fish are tied to another symbol in the book too. The Motorcycle Boy is curious if the fish would act that way if they were given a new environment with additional space from other fighting fish:
"Wonder if they'd act that way in the river," the Motorcycle Boy went on.
The Motorcycle Boy eventually steals the fish and releases them into the river. He hopes that the new environment and freedom will result in a behavioral change. The fish store is captivity, and the river is freedom. This is essentially what happened to the Motorcycle Boy when he spent time away from the town and the violence.
A rumble fish is a betta, or Siamese fighting fish. It is symbolic of the difficult situation that the boys in the story find themselves in, destined for conflict.
When Rusty-James sees the Siamese fighting fish in the store, it is a not so subtle connection to his own fate.
If you leaned a mirror against the bowl they'd kill themselves fighting their own reflection…
The betta fish will fight themselves while thinking they are fighting someone else. Symbolically, they are the same situation. They fight because they only know how to fight. The boys are the same way. They fight for silly, self-destructive reasons. Like the tiny fish in the bowl, the characters in the story are trapped.
What is one example of symbolism in Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton?
The title of the Susan E. Hinton teen novel serves symbolically on several levels. "Rumble fish" is the term that the Motorcycle Boy uses for the Siamese fighting fish that he admires in Mr. Dobson's pet store. Siamese fighting fish must be kept apart from one another because, according to Rusty-James' brother,
"They try to kill each other. If you leaned a mirror against the bowl they'd kill themselves trying to fight their own reflection."
The Motorcycle Boy recognizes that the rumble fish are not unlike the gang members with whom Rusty-James associates--the violence that the Motorcycle Boy has tried to escape. The Motorcycle Boy wonders aloud if the fish would "act that way in the river." When he steals the fish from the store in the hopes of releasing them in the river, it is his hope that their new-found freedom will change their ways in a new environment--just as he has changed during he time away from the gang violence in Tulsa.
What is the main idea of Rumble Fish?
There are multiple main ideas that can be pulled from this particular Hinton book. Readers that are familiar with Hinton's works are likely to agree that Rumble Fish is a noticeably darker book than her other books like The Outsiders and That Was Then, This is Now.Rumble Fish is loaded with gang violence and broken relationships, and does not end with anything resembling a happy ending or a coming of age message.
One message that I think Hinton does a wonderful job of showing readers is the emptiness that is gang life. Rusty-James and Steve are friends, but there is tension in that friendship due to the fact that Steve is not so sold on the gang life. Motorcycle Boy's own actions help to show Rusty that a better life can be found elsewhere; however, Rusty simply refuses to listen to those words of warning. Consequently, he loses his friendship with Steve.
I would argue that Motorcycle Boy dies as a consequence of his former gang life and the reputation that he earned there. Readers get a wonderful piece of symbolism regarding the gang life from Motorcycle Boy and the "rumble fish." Motorcycle Boy tells Rusty that the fish would fight to the death if given the chance. It is a strong reminder to readers that nothing good is going to come about from Rusty's clinging on to a gang mentality, gang fights, and having gang enemies like Biff. In the end, Motorcycle Boy dies, the rumble fish die, and Steve and Rusty do not speak for five years. Rusty's life style is empty and lonely, and that is a very different look at gang violence than the brotherhood that Ponyboy was able to give readers.
How does a symbol or motif develop a main idea in Rumble Fish?
"For a tough kid I had a bad habit of getting attached to people."
Literary scholar M.H. Abrams defines a symbol as "anything which signifies something; in this sense all words are symbols" (206). Abrams defines motif as "a conspicuous element, such as a type of incident, device, reference, or formula, which occurs frequently in a work of literature" (121). With these in mind, let's look at Hinton's 1975 novel, Rumble Fish.
The story is narrated by the protagonist, Rusty-James, a tough teenager living with his father. He looks up to, even idolizes, his older brother Motorcycle Boy, something of a local legend. If I had to pick one main theme for the book, I'd go with freedom, which is admittedly a bit nebulous.
Motorcycle Boy is strongly individualistic and comes and goes as he pleases. While he is spoken about with reverence, he doesn't fit in and doesn't seem to have any direction. As his father says about him "He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do" (116). He, more than any other character, embodies freedom, although he never achieves it and is gunned down in the end. Rusty-James wants to be just like him and spends much of the book trying to be like him: "He was the coolest person in the whole world. . .And I was going to be just like him" (35).
Rusty-James, too, fails to achieve freedom, and when me meet him in the opening chapter, he's just returned from reform school. As far as the motifs that Hinton uses, many of them are classic examples of juvenile delinquency. The characters fight, play pool, drink, smoke, and fool around with girls. All these are examples of the characters, especially Rusty-James, are trying to be tough and act older than they are. Conversely, they also show how they are trapped in their lives and don't have much hope or direction. A final important symbol, which gives the book its title, is the Siamese fighting fish or rumble fish. In the book's climax, Rusty-James and Motorcycle Boy break into a pet shop, and Motorcycle Boy sets the fish free, but he fails: "the little rumble fish were flipping and dying around him, still too far from the river" (118). Both Motorcycle Boy and Rusty-James are the rumble fish. The book was made into a movie in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola.
Note: I'm using Laurel-Leaf paperback edition (1983).
M.H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms (Sixth Edition)