On death – First stanza 

This first stanza shows the horror of death. “Like fish entangled in an evil net and like birds caught in a snare, so people are ensnared in an evil time, when it suddenly comes upon them” says Quohelet. 

These fish, through their open, blind eyes show the terrifying nature of death, that of transforming one’s self into a thing, of losing one’s individuality. Their tangled corpses remind of the stacked corpses in Auschwitz, of the pyramids of skulls in Cambodia, of the millions who died without a reason.