Analysis of Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Fish"

"The Fish" by: Elizabeth Bishop * The Theme of 'True' Beauty or 'Inner' Beauty: Neither her battered boat nor the "venerable" old fish is beautiful in conventional terms. Their beauty lies in having survived, & when the speaker realizes this, "victory filled up / the little rented boat" & she understands that "everything / was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!" That is when she lets the fish return to his home in the water. The fish helps Bishop …

…the fish because she realizes he has eluded other anglers. The ultimate respect is expressed w/ the fish's release. Bishop knows the fish "...can't be kept, but must be let go" (McCabe). Bishop recognizes that she will be able to hold the moment closer as a memory than by keeping the fish as a trophy. The real theme of Bishop's poem is that of humanitarianism & respect for a fish's lifelong will to survive.