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The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish

About 2 pages (495 words)

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The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish (Russian: Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке) is an 1835 poem by Aleksandr Pushkin. The tale is about a fisherman who managed to catch a Golden Fish which promised to fulfill any wish of his in exchange for letting it go.

Its theme is similar to the story written by the Brothers Grimm and called The Fisherman and His Wife.

1 Plot
2 Influences and adaptations
3 See also
4 External links

Plot

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 (their washboard 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 Sea, 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.

Influences and adaptations

In 1866 the 19th century choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon created a 4 Act-6 Scene ballet adaptation of Pushkin's The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, to the music of Léon Minkus, under the title Le Poisson Doré (The Golden Fish). The ballet was staged for the Russian Tsar's Imperial Ballet (today the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet) in St. Petersburg, Russia. The tale was made into a 32-minute 1950 animated film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. The caught Gold Fish is among the standard setups of Russian jokes.