The Third Wish

“The Third Wish”

Imagine yourself waking up to the sobs of your wife. You find her talking in a foreign tongue to a swan. Why? Because she’s sad. “The Third Wish” is definitely an unrealistic romance because of the way Joan Aiken uses her symbols.
“The Third Wish” follows the plotline of a romance in many ways. First of all, he wished for a beautiful wife; Which resembles the ‘Perfect Life’. Then comes the mild conflict is when he finds out Leita is part swan, but since it’s a romance, everything will be good. But then, when Leita starts turning pale and thin(which are symbols for death and illness), Mr. Peters resolves the conflict by turning her into a swan. But even though he turned her into a swan, she felt as if she would owe him something in the future. Therefore, her repayment would be when thieves tried to break into Mr. Peters house, Leita and her sister swan would fight off the thieves and throw them into the pond. Then, after the years passed, Mr. Peters died, but not naturally. He died with a smile on his face. In my mind, I think it resembles the life affirming symbol because he’ll probably live happier in heaven.
As it’s a romance, it’s definitely unrealistic. In the beginning, Mr. Peters rescues a swan that then turns into a man? Even though that’s a lot of unrealism, the man grants him three wishes. Then, using one of the wishes, he wishes for a wife as beautiful as the forest. Then when Leita, his wife, she acts suspiciously often. Throughout time, Mr. Peters finds out she is a swan. One day, he stumbles upon her speaking a language he’s never heard to a swan that later comes out being Leita’s sister. But in all my 12 years of life I have never seen anyone have the ability to speak to swans. Then, as I mentioned before, Mr. Peters dies with a smile on his face. As long as I could remember, I’ve never seen anyone die with a smile.
As an unrealistic romance, Joan Aiken sells many symbols like a vender at Miller Park. One of the reasons I think she used symbols is for us younger kids, to help us understand more about the story. Right away in the story, she writes “birds had stopped singing” which in my view symbolizes something sad, eerie or uncanny. Also, she quotes “At dusk… through part of the forest” which could very so mean sadness. And then this symbol stuck out to me very much. When Leita walked out of the forest, here’s how Joan Aiken described her; “Skin as white as the feathers of swans.” This was very important from the story because if you understood it, it gives off a giant clue.
The morale of the story is not too spend everything but to take it for granted. The sadness of Leita is resembled because Mr. Peters wasn’t obsessed with her. The story “The Third Wish” is a great story of showing how an author shows unrealistic romantic symbols.