The Language of Goldfish by Zibby Oneal

First published: 1980

Type of work: Psychological realism

Themes: Coming-of-age and suicide

Time of work: The late twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: Suburban Chicago

Principal Characters:

• Carrie Stokes, a thirteen-year-old girl living with her family in an affluent suburban home
• Moira Stokes, her older sister, confident and popular
• Duncan Stokes, her fifth-grade brother
• Mrs. Stokes, Carrie’s mother, a busy suburban housewife and mother, active in community affairs and socially conscious
• Dr. Stokes, her father, a physician
• Sophie, the maid
• Mrs. Ramsey, Carrie’s eighth-grade art teacher
• Dr. Ross, the psychiatrist who listens but does not direct

The Story

Time provides a circular plot for The Language of Goldfish, which opens and closes during the October of Carrie Stoke’s ninth-grade year. In a brief introduction, Carrie, on the train from Northpoint to Chicago for one of her daily appointments with psychiatrist Dr. Ross, contemplates the past year. Memory returns her to the September, one year earlier, when she begins to realize her mind is doing what she cannot understand: things shifting suddenly, strange colors tumbling, a roaring noise, and a feeling of faintness.

At first Carrie dismisses these attacks as flu symptoms and simple dizzy spells, but slowly she comes to realize that they are something more significant. Carrie attempts to keep her activities routine and normal—the school day, school work, family life, her art work, and her Saturday morning art lessons with Mrs. Ramsey— but the attacks continue. During Thanksgiving vacation, while walking to her brother’s hockey game, she becomes disoriented and lost in a part of town she does not even recognize. A stranger in a truck returns her to her house, where her parents’ cocktail party is in progress. It becomes impossible for Carrie to focus on the facts; she has been gone for more than two hours and cannot account for the time. She is not able to concentrate enough to make small talk with the guests when her mother tries to engage her in conversation. Desperately trying to find some peace, which she perceives as an island, she runs upstairs and swallows pills.

When Carrie wakes up, she faces two realities: She is in the hospital, and she has tried to kill herself. The hospital stay stretches until Christmas and presents many challenges for Carrie. First, there is the persistent presence of Dr. Ross, who seems to answer her questions with questions. Second, she must face her mother’s denial. When Carrie tries to talk about her suicide attempt, her mother responds by talking about snow and the results of Duncan’s spelling test. Finally, there is the decision about whether to go home for Christmas.

Carrie’s healing process is a slow one. She must first face the strain at home during the holidays. Then, on returning to school, she is faced with makeup work, the occasional questions from fellow students, and her need to leave school immediately each day to catch the train for her appointments with Dr. Ross. The healing begins, nevertheless, and, in the midst of the healing process, Carrie has to face the fact that her beloved art teacher is leaving at the end of the school year. Not only is she resigning her teaching position, but she is leaving her husband for another man and moving to Milwaukee.

Suddenly, Carrie realizes that she is painting the island, that symbol of security and peace. With the actualization of the island, the healing and acceptance of her maturation are revealed in outward signs as well: her first bra and attendance at a school dance. Finally, Carrie discovers the real island in the goldfish pond in the backyard. Sitting at the end of the pond with eight-year-old Sara, a neighbor girl, Carrie tells the story of goldfish language to her and passes the “magic” on to her. Thus, Carrie realizes that she is able to give up her childhood and proceed to a new stage of life.

Context

The Language of Goldfish, published in 1980, is Zibby Oneal’s first book intended for a young adult audience. It was followed by A Formal Feeling in 1982 and In Summer Light in 1985. All are stories with central characters who are female and young. Carrie Stokes in The Language of Goldfish is thirteen, Ann Cameron in A Formal Feeling is sixteen, and Kate Brewer in In Summer Light is seventeen. All are coming-of-age stories that reveal slow, deliberate transformations. In A Formal Feeling, Ann Cameron must come to terms with her past and face the feelings and guilt after her mother’s death. Kate Brewer in In Summer Light deals with strained relationships with her father. All are intelligent adolescent girls who are required to use their resources to sort out their feelings. While Kate Brewer is aided a bit more in her self-discovery—she meets a graduate student, Ian Jackson—all the characters struggle and take final responsibility for their situations. This fact sets the novels of Zibby Oneal apart from many of the adolescent novels which employ an outside source such as achieving some long-sought-after goal, sudden friendships, or “winning the big game” to help in solving problems and to serve as the final resolutions.

While many realistic novels written for young adults use first-person narrative as the storytelling technique, these stories by Oneal are all third-person stories. This allows the reader more narrative distance, which is in keeping with the reflective, thoughtful nature of her books.

When accepting the Boston Globe-Horn Book award for In Summer Light, Oneal spoke of the growing-up theme of her books, specifically growing up female, in this way: “Growing up is not a passive undertaking....While boys set off on a journey to seek their fortunes, the girls set off on a journey of another kind. It is a quiet, dreaming, inward journey, but who is to say that the dragons encountered are not equally fearsome or that the destination has not been just as dearly won?” In The Language of Goldfish, Carrie seems to be trying to stay a child forever and never grow up. In the end, the reader discovers with her that she can stay a child forever and grow up.