The Fox and the Grapes, illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 Aesop anthology

The Fox and the Grapes is a fable attributed to Aesop. It is one of a number which feature only a single animal protagonist. (Other examples include The Cock and the Jewel.) A fox, upon failing to find a way to reach grapes hanging high up on a vine, retreated and said: "The grapes are sour anyway!"

Frank Tashlin adapted the tale into a 1941 Color Rhapsodies short for Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures. The Fox and the Grapes marked the first appearance of Screen Gems' most popular characters, The Fox and the Crow. The Electric Company adapted the fable as one of the "Very Short Book" series; in only a few pages and words it sums up the fable exactly as written, with the fox saying "I'll bet they're sour!"

The fable illustrates the concept of cognitive dissonance, which occurs when a person tries to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously. Dissonance is reduced by altering one of the belief or desire states, even if it leads to irrational behavior.^[1]

[edit] Sour grapes

The English idiom "sour grapes" - derived from this fable - refers to:

• the false denial of desire for something sought but not acquired
• the denigration and feigning of disdain for that which one could not attain

The phrase is sometimes also used to refer to one expressing, in an unsportsmanlike or ungracious way, anger or frustration at having failed to acquire something (i.e. being a "sore loser"), regardless of whether the party denies their desire for the item. Not including the denial of desire is technically a slipshod extension of the metaphor because it is inconsistent with the phrase's origin in the fable and the notion of the grapes being declared "sour". ^[2]

Similar expressions exist in other languages; for example, the Persian expression: "The cat who cannot reach the meat says it stinks!” The expression is present in the Scandinavian countries also, where the sour grapes have been replaced with sour rowanberries since grapes are not common in northern latitudes. In psychology, this behavior is known as rationalization. It may also be called reduction of cognitive dissonance.

[edit] Unripe versus sour

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The moral of the fable centers on the qualification by the fox, when he finds his desire unattainable. The word "sour" was probably chosen by the translators in Western Europe writing during the Victorian era. Study of older versions of the fable suggest that "unripe" might be a more literal translation, the idea being that the fox would come back later to try in earnest. The word "unripe" may have been replaced with "sour" by the fable's Victorian translators since the word "unripe", in Victorian society, might have been interpreted as an innuendo suggesting an as-yet unripe woman.

Another view is that "sour grapes" is brief and concrete, as compared with "unripe grapes".

In the original Greek, the phrase is "όμφακες εισίν" (omphakes eisin), the word omphax having both the literal meaning of an unripe grape and the metaphorical usage of someone too young.

[edit] References

• Elster, Jon "Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality"
• Steinbeck, John "The Grapes of Wrath"

[edit] See also

• Aesop's Fables
• Cognitive dissonance
• Logical fallacy – Argument from silence
• Rationalization

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Fox and the Grapes

• Aesop's fables applied to business and management
• Story with pictures from umass.edu
• Róka és a szőlő