Summary
“The Fisherman and His Soul”
The young Fisherman goes out every evening and has luck only when the wind blows to the shore and the fish come in from the deep. One evening his net is so heavy he can barely drag it into the boat, and he wonders what marvel he caught. What he sees, though, is a little Mermaid lying fast asleep. She is splendid, with an ivory body, a tail of silver and pearl, glistening salt on her eyelids, and golden hair.
The Fisherman clasps her in his arms but she cries out like a startled gull. He will not let her escape but she weeps that she must return to her father, who is aged and alone in the deep. He makes her promise that whenever he calls her she will come sing to him. She agrees, and sinks below the waves.
Every evening, the Fisherman does indeed call her, and she sings of mermaids, fish, fans of coral, big whales, barnacles, and more. She never comes near enough for him to touch her.
Her voice becomes sweeter and sweeter to his ear and he can barely focus on fishing anymore. He professes his love to her but she says she can only love him if he sends away his human soul. The Fisherman thinks he does not need his soul since he cannot see it or touch it, and decides he will do that for her. The little Mermaid laughs joyfully, but when he asks her how to do it, she says she does not know because the Sea-folk have no souls.
The next morning, the young Fisherman goes to the house of a Priest and tells him his plight. The Priest is horrified and says the soul is the noblest part of man and the Sea-folk are lost from God. It is the body that is vile and pagan, and the singers of the sea are tempters and will never enter Heaven. The Fisherman tries to remonstrate with him but to no avail.
Out in the street, a few merchants see the Fisherman walking and ask what he has to sell. He tells them he is weary of his soul and will sell it to them. They say they only care for the body and will keep it as a slave. The Fisherman walks away back down to the shore.
The Fisherman remembers a young Witch who dwells in a cave and is very cunning, so he goes to her. She senses him coming and asks what he needs, suggesting a myriad of strange things and her amazing ways of procuring them. He tells her forthrightly that he must send his soul away and her eyes grow wide. She asks what he will give her, but when he says gold and his nets and boat, she says she only wants him to dance with her. This appeals to the Fisherman, and she explains that he must come tonight when the moon is full to dance on the Sabbath when “He” is there. The Fisherman does not know of whom she speaks but is filled with joy at knowing how to get rid of his soul.
That evening, the moon rises and witches fly through the air like bats to gather. The Fisherman arrives and sees the young Witch clad in gold. They whirl about together with the others. There is the sound of a galloping horse but the Fisherman sees no one. He grows afraid but everyone dances faster and faster. His brain is troubled and fear pervades him; he feels watched.
Suddenly he sees a man in a velvet suit with a pale face. He has a listless manner and plays with a dagger. It seems like the man’s eyes are always on the Fisherman as he dances. A dog bays and the dancing stops. The witches kiss the man’s hands and he smiles disdainfully at each.
The Witch pulls the young man near and he instinctively makes the sign of the Cross. The witches scream and fly away and the pale man winces. The young Witch tries to fly away but the Fisherman holds her and demands to know how to rid of his soul. She does not want to tell him and moans sadly, and only capitulates when he angrily says he will slay her. She gives him a small knife of green viper’s skin from her girdle and tells him to stand on the seashore in the shadow of the moon and cut away his own shadow and bid it leave him. The Fisherman trembles but takes the knife.
The Fisherman climbs down the hill and his Soul speaks to him, asking why he is being sent away if he has done no evil. The Fisherman laughs and explains it is because he does not need him. His Soul cries but he does not heed it, and does as the witch described. His Soul begs and cries, but the Fisherman cuts it off anyway. He is full of awe as he bids it depart.
Before the Soul leaves, it says it will revisit the Fisherman once a year and see if he wants it back. The Fisherman cares not, and the Mermaid leaps out to embrace and grab him. They sink into the sea.
After a year, the Soul returns and calls for the Fisherman. He tells him of his marvelous journeys East. He saw the encampment of the Tartars and journeyed with them to the country of those who curse the Moon. They saw Gryphons and Dragons and Pygmies. They passed through kingdoms and villages and fought battles. They came to the sultry city of Illel where they drank from pomegranates and plied their wares in the marketplace. All came—priests, nobles, craftsmen, slaves. One evening, the Soul went to the garden of their God and laid before the temple and its pool of clear water. A priest neared him and asked what he wanted. The Soul replied that he wanted to see the god, but the priest lied and told him the god was hunting, then asleep, then at a feast. The Soul was undeterred and the priest led him into the temple. There was an idol on a throne of jasper, covered in gems and oil. Its feet were red with blood. The Soul was angry because this was not the god, and touched the priest’s hand and made it wither. The priest was afraid and the Soul ordered him to take him to the god; he revived the dead hand. The priest took him to another idol and the Soul became angry. Finally the priest took him before a large mirror and bade him look into it. He explained that this was the Mirror of Wisdom, and it reflected everything in heaven and earth. Those who posses it have all wisdom; those who do not have no wisdom. This, then, is their god.
The Soul concludes his tale and tells the Fisherman he took and hid the Mirror of Wisdom and he can show the Fisherman where to find it. The Fisherman only laughs and says love is better than wisdom.
The next year, the Soul returns and asks the Fisherman to listen to his story. He tells of going down South, arriving at the city of Ashter, and telling the guards he was a merchant on his way to Mecca. Inside of the city, he saw the bazaar and smelled wondrous things and saw opium-eaters and guitar players and wine-sellers and fruit-sellers with exotic offerings. One night, he saw Negros carrying a palanquin with a pale-faced Circassian who was looking out. The men carried her to a house with a door and no windows, but when the Soul went back when the moon came up, it was gone. On the feast of the New Moon, the Emperor came out of his palace to pray and everyone bowed down except for the Soul. The Emperor ordered his guards to seize the Soul and bring him to the Emperor’s garden. The Soul met with two eunuchs and was ushered before the Emperor. A tall Nubian with a scimitar stood behind him. The Emperor questioned the Soul but the Soul did not answer so both the Emperor and the Nubian attacked him with multiple weapons but to no avail. The Emperor was shocked and knew that the Soul had mastery in this place, and slew the Nubian so he could not speak of it. The Soul asked for half the Emperor’s treasure to go away, and the Emperor agreed. He led the Soul to his treasure and presented it to him. The Soul said he had no need of it—only the leaden ring on the Emperor’s finger.
That ring is the Ring of Riches, and, as the Soul tells the Fisherman, is hidden nearby for him. The Fisherman laughs and says love is better than riches.
A third year passes and the Soul returns to the Fisherman. When he mentions he went to a city and saw a dancing girl perform, the Fisherman suddenly realizes the Mermaid has no feet and decides he must see the dancing girl. He comes to dry land and the Soul joyfully runs to meet him.
The two journey that night and another day and night until they arrive at a city. It is not the one the Fisherman wants, but the Soul leads him in. The Soul urges the Fisherman to swipe a silver cup in a booth. The Fisherman does so, but once out of the city he asks with consternation why the Soul made him do that. The Soul simply says he ought to be at peace.
This happens in the next city, with the Soul telling the Fisherman to beat a child. In the third city, the Soul says this might be the place. The Fisherman sits outside until a merchant sees him and kindly invites him in to stay. He feeds the Fisherman and gives him a bed. To the Fisherman’s horror, though, the Soul commands the Fisherman to slay the merchant and take his gold. The Fisherman has no choice but to obey.
Outside the city, the Fisherman cries that he hates his Soul and asks why it is evil. The Soul replies that when he was sent into the world, he did not have a heart so he learned to love only evil things. The Soul encourages the Fisherman to continue journeying but the anguished Fisherman tries to cut the Soul away. The Soul tells him that a soul can only be separated once; if it is rejoined, it is forever. The Fisherman is shocked and upset the young Witch did not tell him of this. He weeps bitterly.
The Fisherman decides to bind his hands and shut his lips to avoid the Soul making him do things. The Soul tries to tempt him with tales of other women but the Fisherman will not be swayed. He travels back to the shore and calls for the little Mermaid but she does not answer.
No matter how many times the Fisherman calls for her, she does not show. He builds a house in a cleft in the rock and waits. His Soul tries to tempt with good, telling him of all the people that need his help in the world, but the Fisherman’s love will brook no challenge. Finally the Soul asks if it can enter his heart and the Fisherman agrees, but it seems there is no way in.
Suddenly a sound of mourning rises up from the sea, and the body of the little Mermaid comes to the shore. She is dead, and the Fisherman collapses in grief. He confesses to her the terrible things he did and feels joy and pain mixed together.
The Soul warns that the sea is angry and will try to take him but the Fisherman claims that nothing can diminish his love. He must die with the little Mermaid. The sea pulls him in and he kisses the Mermaid’s lips. At this moment his heart breaks, and the Soul finds its way in.
The next morning, the Priest goes down to the water to bless the troubled sea but sees the body of the Fisherman with that of the Mermaid. He tells the gathered people that the Sea-folk are accursed and refuses to bless the sea. He orders the couple buried in the Field of the Fullers, where no sweet herbs grow.
The Priest walks up to the chapel and prepares himself. He puts on his robe but is distracted by strange and sweetly pungent white flowers on the alter. As he speaks to the people, the flowers trouble him more and more. He realizes the words coming from his mouth are from the God of Love. The people weep and tell the Priest the flowers are from the Fullers’ Field. The Priest understands, and at dawn he blesses the sea and all wild things in it.
No more flowers grow in the corner of the Field, and the Sea-folk move away.
Analysis
“The Fisherman and His Soul” is the longest of Wilde’s fairy tales and one that is notable for several reasons. These include, as articulated by critic John Allen Quintus, its telling in the manner of the Holy Bible, its rich and sensuous imagery and language, its “archaic” diction, its “stylized ambiance,” “puzzling richness of detail,” and its ultimately “abstruse” quality even though its moral is apparent.
Wilde suggests that the Soul and the Body need each other, and that the Soul brings the Body to ruin rather than the other way around, as seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Body cannot live in a harmonious state without the balance of the Soul. When the Fisherman separates himself from his Soul, he can live with the Sea-Folk but “[is] incapable of experiencing sin and repentance.” He earns God’s mercy and he and the Mermaid present an example of sacrifice love for others in the community. The white flowers “signify the innocence of their love while they demonstrate God’s sanctity.”
Many of Wilde’s fairy tales can be connected to those of Hans Christian Anderson. “The Fisherman and His Soul” seems, as critic Christopher Nasser writes, derived from Anderson’s “The Shadow.” That work is a dark one in which evil triumphs over good. It consists of a man sending his Shadow out into the world to observe a young woman, and while out there the Shadow learns and does terrible things. By the end of the story, the Shadow has attained power over the man and taken his life for himself. Nasser sees the following commonalities: 1) The Fisherman casts off his own Soul as the man cast off his Shadow. 2) The Mermaid is similar to the woman, who is revealed to be Poetry; however, while both are beautiful Poetry “teaches a nihilistic lesson and introduces a dark world that is quite different from the mermaid’s childlike, innocent one.” 3) The Soul and the Shadow are both sent into the world where they are steeped in evil, cruelty, and sin; both want to survive and return to their body; both “become flawed and corrupt.”
There are differences between the two tales as well. For one, the Soul becomes amoral while the Shadow is immoral, and the Soul yields to the fisherman and is saved “within the Christian framework of the tale.” Anderson’s Shadow is a learned man while the Fisherman is common, but it is the Fisherman who comes to possess real knowledge and real love. And at the end, Wilde’s Fisherman is ensconced in a “universal moral grid” that Anderson does not provide. The Fisherman achieves innocence and life after death, and Wilde’s story is thus “a Christian response to Anderson’s nihilistic vision.”
As most of Wilde’s other fairy tales have homosexual undercurrents, it is worth discussing if this tale, which seems to be the most straightforwardly heterosexual of them, contains any. John-Charles Duffy explains that the relationship between the Fisherman and Mermaid is non-reproductive but sanctified. When the Fisherman acknowledges that his love cannot dance and has no “naked” feet, it suggests that “the Mermaid’s inability to dance comes to stand in as a signifier of her inability to engage in vaginal sex and thus of the sodomitical nature of the Fisherman’s love for her.” The Priest seeing their relationship as an abomination works with this interpretation. Yet, Duffy writes, this type of relationship is depicted as sanctified, strong, and beautiful. The flowers that emerge on the altar make their love seem reproductive after all, but in terms of the spirit, not the body.
