What Of This Goldfish Would You Wish Essay

812 Words4 Pages

If you had the chance to have any three wishes granted, what would you wish for? In the stories ‘What of This Goldfish’ and ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’ two men were given a certain amount of wishes. Of course, the wishes came with consequences, and the characters had to have had a reason to wish of these wishes. The stories are similar and yet different in many interesting ways, and are both overflowing with hidden themes and morals. The characters of both stories made some good and bad choices for their wishes; wouldn't you! In the fictional short story ‘What of This Goldfish, Would you wish’, Sergei Goralick, a Russian hermit living in Jaffa, was fishing on one of his valued late night fishing trips, when he caught a magical goldfish that granted him three wishes. He uses his first two wishes in order to help his friends, but is hesitant to use his last. Sergei knows that when he uses his third wish, he has to let his goldfish, who is now his best friend, free. One day, a boy named Yonatan comes to Sergei's home, and asks him questions about what …show more content…

Some similarities are small, like the magic talking fish; but others, like the underlying motivation to be happy, are very important to the morals of the stories. Both Sergei and the fisherman want to be happy, Sergei wants to be happy alone on quite fishing trips, while the fisherman wants to be happy with his wife. The morals, even though they are tied together, are fairly different. For example, the theme of ‘What of This Goldfish, Would you wish’, doing the right thing, no matter the cost, is not the same as be grateful, which is the theme of ‘The Fisherman and His Wife’. Other differences include: the consequences, setting, and major character motivations. While the similarities are smaller, like the considerate personalities shared between the main characters of both

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