The Fisherman and His Wife: A Tale about Being Satisfied
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Authors
Baicker, Karen
Grimm, Jacob
Grimm, Wilhelm
Issue Date
2007
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
I include this book in the collection not because I think The Fisherman and His Wife should be viewed as a fable but because this volume is part of a series that is labeled Famous Fables. This twenty-page children's picture book extends onto its back endpaper with tips for parents, including strategies, discussion questions, and activities that grow out of the story. I am struck that this fairy tale expresses some things that I have been preaching over the past few years. The wife's unbounding desires are never satisfied. They reach Faustian proportions when she wants to control the sun. The fish gets more annoyed with each wish that the poor fisherman brings. The fish knows best when the fulfillment of the last wish is rather to return the two humans to their original state. And, in this version at least, the wife knows now that she was being led in the wrong direction. I am sorry that I was so greedy. And with each new wish that was granted, I just wanted more. Does this story usually involve three wishes, the third of which ends up reversing either the first or the second? I think that, in the Grimms' version, there is a simple reversal to the original state without insight. It seems rather a punishment than an insight.
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Publisher
Reader's Digest Young Families
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Identifier
8948 (Access ID)