The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop

Ok So I have thought about this poem a bit deeper, and it seems like to me that ELizabeth Bishop is describing the beauty of the fish, and its existance, and how it is beautiful in a different way than we are as humans.

For example, when she found out that he has survived other hooks, she begins to feel respect and admiration for the fish, just like you would for a human being if you knew he was a survivor. She gives him the quality of a human being, which I think reveals to us that she is trying to put aside the fact that he is a fish, and see a deeper meaning in its existance.

She uses the word rosette, full blown roses, and peony as a symbol to the beauty of nature in its self. In the beginning of the poem though, she starts off telling us an ordinary experience of catching a fish, and then it seems to me as if she does what other ordinary fishermen do not do which is admire the fish, and connect with its existance and its beauty.

She also describes the fish in a ugly unattractive way, (when she compares its pealing and old skin to a wallpaper). But then she also seems to go deeper in its inner beauty of the fish, its survival, and its struggle to survive in a different environment, just as how we humans would. I think she sees the beauty in it, and therefore connects with the fish, and in the end lets him go because she begins to see rainbow filling the boat, beauty and freedom of nature I suppose. Not too sure, I may be wrong but that is what seemed to me, so let me know what you think of this.