MovieChat Forums > Fiddler on the Roof (1971) Discussion > A Bug in the Story

A Bug in the Story

posted 10 years ago by Qanqor
9 replies | jump to latest

After having seen this movie many times over the years, I finally got around to actually buying a copy, and watched my new copy for the first time last night. And in doing so, I discovered a bug in the story. Consider this:

In the dream, Tevye describes grandma Tzeitel as looking very good "for a woman who's dead thirty years." In the song "Do You Love Me", it is established that Tevye and Golde have been married for 25 years. What's more, it's also established that they did not know each other before then ("The first time I met you was on our wedding day...").

Which means that Grandma Tzeitel had been dead for five years before Tevye even met Golde. So how could he have dreamed of her, or recognized her in the dream, or assessed how good she looked, or anything, if he'd never seen her? I realize that he didn't really dream this, he made it all up. But it's a pretty big hole in his story, which Golde should have seen through.

Comments?

[–] !!!deleted!!! (47421091) 10 years ago

Which means that Grandma Tzeitel had been dead for five years before Tevye even met Golde. So how could he have dreamed of her or recognized her in the dream..

Dreams seem so real when you're dreaming them, but are truly bizarre in the context of our "waking life". While Tevye wouldn't have known what grandma looked like by sight, he did dream of her rising out of her grave. Plus, every one else in the dream realized who she was. And, she acted like grandma with regards to her granddaughter who she said "was named for me".

or assessed how good she looked,

He said she looked good for a woman dead 30 years as opposed to an unembalmed rotting corpse 👻 .

[–] Qanqor 10 years ago

Well, maybe. (and good point about the rotting corpse. :)

But you have to admit, through the whole thing, he acts like he knows her, and she knows him. And Golde never even raises the question of how Tevye knew the grandmother. If my buddy Chris told me he dreamed he met my grandfather Sam-- who died when I was six, whereas I didn't meet Chris until I was in college-- my *first* question to him would be "How did you know it was my grandfather?"

[–] jeremey-1 10 years ago

Tevye made up the dream himself. Golde was probably so frightened by that point that logical questions like : « How did you know it was my grandma Tzeitel ? You never met her ! » were the last ones that she'd ask. Besides, people are not always accurate in their comments : When someone says « I've told you a million times... » or « It happened a hundred years ago... » one might be exaggerating.

[–] DryToast 10 years ago

Have you never had dreams in which you know something to be true, even though it's not true in real life and no one tells you?

I had a dream recently in which I was playing the King in The King and I on Broadway (which is ridiculous, but anyway...) and I thought in the dream, "It is lucky that I am part Asian because I wouldn't be allowed to play this role otherwise." Also in the dream, we were trying to find ways to make the role bigger to justify my being cast, since I knew in the dream that I was a very big star! I am neither part-Asian nor a star, but this was the reality of the dream, which I knew even though nothing that actually happened in the dream told me.

That's how dreams are (in my experience), and I am sure that someone as superstitious as Golde wouldn't question it. If Tevye said "Moses came to me in my dream," she wouldn't say "How did you know it was Moses? You've never seen him!"

You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you.

[–] DryToast 10 years ago

I just mentioned this post to a friend of mine and he came up with another alternative: just because Tevye didn't meet Golde until 25 years ago, he still may have known Grandma Tzeitel as a woman in the village before she died. My impression is that Anatevka was a small and closely knit village.

"You must sing him your prettiest songs, then perhaps he will want to marry you."

[–] mdonln 10 years ago

This is exactly what I was thinking. Marriages were arranged by family and the Yente so while the betrothed couple may not have met until their wedding day, it's entirely possible they knew some of their future in-laws.

There's also the possibility Golde had family in that town but she, and her immediate family, lived in a neighboring town or further away. The marriage may have been 'brokered' by Golde's local family who knew Tveye's family.

My own parents, for instance, are from the same small town but somehow never met each other until they were in their late teens/early twenties. As they discovered later, each knew, or knew of, many of each other's extended family members. It happens.

[–] bens33 10 years ago

Were photographs around in 1905? I believe they were. Golde could've had a photograph, or even a painting, of her grandmother lying around the house.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[–] mdonln 10 years ago

That's another good possibility. Photographs and paintings may have been around during that time but I don't get the impression there were many cameras or life-like paintings in that town. Also, from what I remember, what Tevye said lead me to believe he knew her grandmother in life. I could be wrong.

It could just have been a bug as the OP suggests but there are still many reasonable ways to explain it. Even if he'd never met the grandmother, it could still work.

[–] 10 years ago

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