Essay Comparing The Fisherman And The Jinnee

Most people probably don’t know that Aladdin is actually based off of a story a little bit. When reading “The Fisherman and the Jinnee”, or while watching Aladdin you can very easily tell that these two were sort of based off each other. Whether it be the fact that there’s genies in both stories, the muslim culture, or just the fact that they may share themes. The genies themselves are even comparable too. It’s obvious that Aladdin and “The Fisherman and the Jinnee” have some connections between the two of them.

Aladdin is obviously a very well-known Disney movie. The crowd that draws the most attention to it is the kids, and the most well-known character is the genie. Everyone loves the genie because he just brings a lot of energy, and also

brings a lot of comedy to the movie. In Aladdin, the genie is this nice, up-beat, and soft-hearted guy. He is very positive, and he also guarantees that he will give you three wishes. The one thing the genies wants the most though, is for someone to wish for him to be free. Also in Aladdin, there is a theme of people trying to be something they’re not. This mainly goes for Aladdin himself who tries to pretend that he’s a prince just so he can marry Jasmine. This could also go for Jafar who wishes to be the sultan, and when he becomes the sultan he completely abuses his powers. In “The Fisherman and the Jinnee”, there are some similarities, and there are some differences. Especially with the jinnee.
In “The Fisherman and the Jinnee”, the jinnee is a very intimidating, and ugly looking jinnee. He has very sharp and jagged teeth, he has a nose that looks like two giant bowls, and his eyes were red like fire. When the fisherman caught the jinnee and freed him from his bottle, he came out very intimidating and frightened the fisherman. He told the fisherman that he will get the choice of which way he wanted to die. He said that during the first 100 years he was in the bottle he would enrich whoever freed him. During the second 100 years of being in the bottle he said that whoever freed him would become rich, and so would his children's’ children. There are clearly some comparisons too between these two folk tales.
Although there seems like that there are quite a few differences between these two folk tales, there are some comparisons too.

One being the fact that both genies were discovered. Obviously there are a lot of differences between the two genies, like the fact the genie in Aladdin is nice and actually grants people three wishes, and the other jinnee does not offer his three wishes and is very mean and intimidating. Both genies though did not like being genies and wanted to be freed. They were both in their bottles for a very long time. Another comparison is characters pretending to be ones they’re not. Aladdin would pretend to be a prince, and in the other one the jinnee himself wasn’t exactly performing the right actions of what a jinnee should. Both stories have to do with muslim culture, considering the fact that Allah came up in both of them. A big similarity happens at the end of both stories. In Aladdin, Aladdin himself tricks Jafar into the bottle when jafar is an extremely evil genie. In “The Fisherman and the Jinnee”, the fisherman tricks the jinnee into the bottle as well by saying that he didn’t think that the jinnee could fit his body into the bottle. There are many similarities and differences between them, and many more that I haven’t

stated.
In conclusion, there are some obvious connections between the two folk tales, and some that you need to dig a little deeper to find. The genie in Aladdin is a very nice and kind-hearted genie. In “The Fisherman and the Jinnee” the jinnee is a very mean and dark jinnee that doesn’t grant three wishes to the man that releases him. The endings of each story are kind of comparable though with what happened to the genies. Although some people think that the two stories are completely different, there are enough similarities to know that the resemble each other a little bit.