What are the themes of "Fishing for Jasmine" by John Ravenscroft?

The main
themes of John Ravenscroft's short story, "Fishing for Jasmine," are empathy, beauty
and loss. The narrator is fascinated with the comatose Jasmine because she is able to empathize
with her. Both have experienced life at sea, and both have endured loss. The comatose Jasmine
has, at least temporarily, lost the life she once had, and the narrator, also called Jasmine,
has lost a child. The narrator feels as if she and the comatose Jasmine "are almost
one," such is the empathy that she feels for her.

The comatose Jasmine
is also very beautiful, which perhaps makes the loss that she has suffered all the more tragic.
Her beauty, the narrator says, is such a "rare thing" that people in the hospital
"invent reasons" to walk by so that they can see it. The narrator says that she
catches people staring at Jasmine, "drinking her in, feeding on her (beauty)." She
calls these people "Roaming visitors with greedy eyes." The disparaging way in which
the narrator describes these people perhaps suggests another theme, namely jealousy. The
narrator seems to want the comatose Jasmine all to herself, and becomes jealous whenever other
people try to take some of her for themselves.