The Gold Fish Analysis

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Alivia Lindblad
09/25/17
7 th The story "What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?" is a three wish folktale. The story has three main characters, Yonatan, Sergei, and The Goldfish. Yoni is a film director and is working on a new documentary that he hopes will become famous and get discovered by famous film producers, or companies. Although, this documentary isn't like every other documentary, there Is no camera crew, and no nonsense. Its just Yonatan and his camera going from door to door and asking one simple question, "If you found a talking goldfish that granted you three wishes, what would you wish for?" And recording peoples answers. Sergei is a Russian man who had quite a bad past,

Yoni barges in anyways and immediately he sees Sergei's goldfish. Little did Yoni know that it actually was a magical goldfish that Sergei found. Of course Sergei thought Yoni was there to take his magical goldfish, his only friend. Sergei panicked and hit Yoni in the head with a burner. Yoni fell to the floor and died. Sergei only had one more wish and didn’t want to use if on him. Instead he wished to not be alone. The three wishes folktale that I chose "Loppi and Lappi," is about an old married couple who despise each other, they cant stand being with each other anymore and think they would be so much better off without each other. They abuse one another both emotionally and physically. One day a beautiful women came to their home, she claimed to be sent from God. She told them their suffer will soon end, they had three days to think of three wishes that she would grant them, but they had to keep peace in their home. They had never been so nice to each other, those were one of the best three days they had had. The three days had past, they were siting down enjoying a nice good meal before they make there wishes. The wife said thanks for the cabbage soup they had gotten but she wished they had sausage to go with

To state the obvious, both stories include three wishes. Where a character/characters get three wishes from someone or something magical. Another similarity is that both of the stories have a meaning behind them, and also in both of the stories the characters are struggling in some kind of way with either their life, past, or something else. There are also a couple differences. For example, yes they both have meanings, but the meaning behind the story in "Loppi and Lappi" is way more clear since they state it at the very end of the tale. While in "What of This

Goldfish Would You Wish?", the meaning of the story is hidden, and isn't clearly stated. The story we read in class is more detailed then the story I found.
I think its different in a way of "reality." Everything in Etgar Kerets story is "real", except for the magical, talking fish. It has real life people, places, struggles and past tense happening that the other stories I read didn’t have. Most of the ones that I read had either fake places, and creatures etc.