# Who was the Fiddler on the Roof ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 28, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051 "2005-01-28T04:04:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/1 "2005-01-28T04:04:13Z")
It’s bizzare, but bear with me. We watched one of Mrs. Plant’s most, and my least, favorite movies, [Fiddler On the Roof](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxzZz0xfHR0PW9ufHBuPTB8cT1maWRkbGVyIG9uIHRoZSByb29mfG14PTIwfGxtPTIwMHxodG1sPTE_;fc=1;ft=20;fm=1) . At the end, the Fiddler is chasing after and then running away from Tevye. I was struck by the similarity of the end of [The Seventh Seal](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxzZz0xfHR0PW9ufHBuPTB8cT10aGUgc2V2ZW50aCBzZWFsfG14PTIwfGxtPTIwMHxodG1sPTE_;fc=1;ft=20), as Death drives the protagonists before him, filmed at a distance in a sort of letter box format like the scene in _Fiddler_. Death was Death in the _Seventh Seal_, but who was the Fiddler? Tradition? Fate? And how the hell could a milkman who had to pull his own cart afford tickets to America? ;j ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/2 "2005-01-28T04:10:33Z")
**Tutte Lemkow** Oh…you meant what does the fiddler symbolize? Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/3 "2005-01-28T04:18:58Z")
Well, according to Tevye’s opening monologue, the Fiddler is symbolic of each and every person in Anatevka, and his balancing act is symbolic of the difficulties in their lives. The balance itself is made possible by Tradition (cue music). > [@Tevye](#): > > A fiddler on the roof, sounds crazy. But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof. Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask ‘Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?’ Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! At the end, the Fiddler is on the ground, because Tradition has given way to the New Ways of Doing Things represented by America. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/4 "2005-01-28T05:10:46Z")
Although the main inspiration for **Fiddler on the Roof** were the stories of writer “Sholom Aleichem”, it was also inspired in part by a painting by Marc Chagall of – well – a Fiddler on a Roof: [http://bjohnson.typepad.com/photos/sfmomachagall/chagall2.html](http://bjohnson.typepad.com/photos/sfmomachagall/chagall2.html) The poster art for the Broadway show looked Chagall-esque (and, when Zero Mostel starred, they altered the face of the Fiddler to look like him), and the set featured a proscenium arch that had a fence going all he way around the arch, so that the fence and houses were upside-down at the top, kinda like Chagall’s paintings and stained-glass windows. I think they were entranced by Chagall’s stuff, and were determined to work this into the play, even the title of it, no matter how hard they had to force that shoehorn to get it to fit. “Fiddler on the Roof” is an awkward title, and the explanation that he has something to do with the balancing act needed by everyone in Anatevka to keep going isn’t entirely satisfactory. It doesn’t really tell you who that fiddler _is_. I’ve always taken him to be Tradition, although you can argue against that interpretation, too. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/5 "2005-01-28T09:39:29Z")
Incidentally, Sholem Aleichem’s original book was called “Tevya the Milkman”. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > It > > And how the hell could a milkman who had to pull his own cart afford tickets to America? ;j Let’s just say, they didn’t travel First Class. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/6 "2005-01-28T14:53:42Z")
In high school, I was. I played the violin part, too. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-fiddler-on-the-roof/287051/7 "2005-01-28T15:16:06Z")
Chagall actually designed part of the set for the original show (to my knowledge his first and only experience in set design, but I might be wrong). As mentioned above, the Fiddler is not in the stories but is totally from Chagall’s works. He is the personification of Anatevka’s culture. In the current Broadway revival, the ending is actually changed very slightly so that instead of the Fiddler going with Tevye & his Family (again, symbolic= Tevye’s not really buying a trip for the man but he’s taking his tradition with him) it now ends with The Fiddler plays the same haunting end-piece (also the beginning piece) but, rather than go with Tevye, he puts his fiddle into a case and gives it to a young boy who is travelling to America. (I haven’t seen the show, but my source for this it he liner notes from the CD.) As for how Tevye could afford tickets to America, I’m assuming he had a tiny bit of money saved but he also had just sold his house and his livestock. While he certainly would not have gotten anywhere near their actual worth, a farm and livestock sold at a fraction of their worth added to saving could still conceivably pay for four steerage-class tickets to America (which could be as little as $15 per ticket- even the Titanic got only about $35-$50 for its steerage bunks), and it’s conceivable some profiteer would have given him the $100 that would buy the tickets for his farm and animals as the farm would be worth several times that. In the book, Tevye does _NOT_ go to America. Tevye’s a much older character in the books as well- when he’s telling about his daughters marriages he’s talking of things that happened years and years before (and he has seven daughters rather than five). The book ends with him cancelling his plans to emigrate to Palestine [Golde is dead by this time] to go and live with his widowed daughter Tzeitel so that he can work and provide for her and her children Basically, he’s a poor schlub who never gets a break in the book.