The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish
Encyclopedia
The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish is a fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 in verse by Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin wrote the tale in autumn 1833
1833 in literature
The year 1833 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Alphonse de Lamartine is elected a député of France.*Parley's Magazine, an American periodical for young readers, publishes its first issue.-New Books:*Honoré de Balzac...

 and it was first published in the literary magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya in May 1835
1835 in literature
The year 1835 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:* Alexis de Tocqueville publishes the first volume of Democracy in America....

. The tale is about a fisherman who manages to catch a "Golden Fish" which promises to fulfill any wish of his in exchange for its freedom. The storyline is similar to the Russian fairy tale The Greedy Old Wife (according to Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.- Biography :...

) and the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...

's tale The Fisherman and His Wife
The Fisherman and His Wife
The Fisherman and His Wife is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale no. 19. It is Aarne-Thompson type 555, the fisherman and his wife. Its theme was used in The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, a 1835 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. Mrs Ramsey reads the story to James, her son in...

.

Plot summary

In Pushkin's poem, an old man and woman have been living poorly for many years. They have a small hut, and every day the man goes out to fish. One day, he throws in his net and pulls out seaweed two times in succession, but on the third time he pulls out a golden fish. The fish pleads for its life, promising any wish in return. However, the old man does not want anything, and lets the fish go. When he returns and tells his wife about the golden fish, she gets angry and tells her husband to go ask the fish for a new washboard
Washboard
A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....

, as theirs is broken, and the fish happily grants this small request. The next day, the wife asks for a new house, and the fish grants this also. Then, in succession, the wife asks for a palace, to become the ruler of her province, to become the tsarina, and finally to become the Ruler of the Sea and to subjugate the golden fish completely to her boundless will. As the man goes to ask for each item, the sea becomes more and more stormy, until the last request, where the man can hardly hear himself think. When he asks that his wife be made the Ruler of the Sea, the fish cures her greed by putting her back in the old cottage and giving back the broken washboard. The moral of the story is: do not get too greedy, or you will end up with nothing.

Adaptations

  • 1866 - Le Poisson doré (The Golden Fish), "fantastic ballet", choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon
    Arthur Saint-Leon
    Arthur Saint-Léon was the Maître de Ballet of St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet from 1859 until 1869 and is famous for creating the choreography of the ballet Coppélia.-Biography:...

    , the music by Ludwig Minkus
    Ludwig Minkus
    Ludwig Minkus a.k.a. Léon Fyodorovich Minkus was an Austrian composer of ballet music, a violin virtuoso and teacher.Minkus is most noted for the music he composed while serving as Ballet Composer of the St...

    .
  • 1937 - The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, USSR, animated
    Animation
    Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

     film by Aleksandr Ptushko
    Aleksandr Ptushko
    Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko is a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and Meritorious Artist of the RSFSR. Ptushko is frequently referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney," due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis...

    . http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=2491
  • 1950 - The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, USSR, traditionally-animated
    Traditional animation
    Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...

     film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=3005
  • 2002 - About the Fisherman and the Goldfish, Russia, stop-motion
    Stop motion
    Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

     film by Nataliya Dabizha. http://www.animator.ru/db/?ver=eng&p=show_film&fid=6113

External links

«Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке» available at Russian Virtual Library
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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