"The Fisherman and the Genie"

Essay by ilnet2000High School, 12th grade February 2006

download word file, 2 pages 2.0

* A poor fisherman casts his net four times, out of custom

* First cast: caught a dead ass

* Second cast: jar full of sand

* Third cast: found potsherds, bones, and broken bottles

* Forth cast: found a silver box, containing, Afrits, the genie

* The fisherman is portrayed as a god fearing individual. Out of respect for his god, he bestows a form of blessing before and after he casts his net.

* The moral of the story is what you do upon others, others will do upon you. ("Spare me, so god may spare thee; and do not kill me, lest god kill thee:)

* The genie is delineated as a huge/ candle eyed creation who grew impatient in his vessel (That was the reason why he decided to kill the person that released him)

* Dunyasard is the narrator of the story. She is reading it to her sister as a bedtime story.

One can relate with both the fisherman and the genie in this tale. The fisherman, for instance, is presented as an average person (fisherman) trying to get by. He has no desire to be something he's not. He knows that he is a fisherman by trade does not falter by his daunting profession. The genie, on the other hand, regrets his preordained way of life. For over 700 some years, this genie was sealed in his vessel. Any sane person can connect with this character and feel his resentment and contempt for the outside world. While many others lived life in the company of others, Afrits, the genie was kept in isolation.

If I was a child, I would learn many things from this story. The first thing I would probably retain would be the fact that genies are not always...