The Monkey and the Turtle: Summary, Moral and Rizal's 1889 Version
Quick answer: The Monkey and the Turtle, the Philippine fable retold by Jose Rizal in 1889: the banana plant divided, the thorns, the trick of the water, its moral and classroom notes.
A turtle and a monkey find a banana plant floating down the river and agree to share it. The monkey takes the leafy top, which dies; the turtle takes the roots, which grow and fruit. The story of how the monkey steals the bananas and how the turtle gets even is the oldest fable most Filipino children know.
The tale is Tagalog oral tradition. Jose Rizal wrote it down in English for the London journal Trübner's Record in July 1889, under the title Two Eastern Fables, comparing it with the Japanese story of the monkey and the crab, and illustrated it himself. Rizal's text is public domain. This page follows his version and notes variants.
The story in brief
The monkey and the turtle, friends, pull a banana plant from the water and divide it. The monkey, thinking himself clever, takes the upper half with its leaves; the turtle plants the rooted lower half. The monkey's share withers; the turtle's grows and bears a heavy bunch. The turtle cannot climb, and asks the monkey to fetch the fruit. The monkey climbs, eats every banana, and mocks the turtle below.
The turtle plants thorns around the trunk, and when the monkey jumps down he is pierced. Furious, he finds the turtle and threatens to kill him, offering a choice of deaths. The turtle begs to be pounded or burnt, anything but thrown into the water, which he says would drown him. The monkey, wanting the worst, throws him into the river. The turtle surfaces, laughing, in his own element. In Rizal's version the story ends there; some oral versions continue with the monkey's further humiliation.
The characters
Themes and meaning
Classroom readings name greed punished, patience rewarded, and the victory of wit over strength. The divided banana plant is the fable's first lesson: the flashy share is the worthless one.
The sharper observation is Rizal's reason for publishing it. In 1889, comparing the Filipino tale with a Japanese one, he was arguing to European readers that the Philippines had a literature and a shared Asian culture worth respecting. A children's fable became an exhibit in the case for a people.
The craft
The fable turns twice: once at the thorns, where the wronged party strikes back, and once at the water, where the victim converts the aggressor's cruelty into escape. The second turn is the famous one because it depends on the monkey's wish to do the worst.
The technique worth stealing is the reverse plea: a character begs to be spared the one thing that will save him. It is the engine of Brer Rabbit's briar patch too, and it still works in modern comedy and thrillers. A contest story built on this kind of trap tends to score well for structure, as Writory's rubric acknowledges.
For class and essays
What writers can take from this
- Name both turns, the thorns and the water, in any retelling.
- Explain the reverse plea as the fable's engine.
- Give Rizal's 1889 publication and its purpose.
- For your own fiction, let a character beg to be spared the thing that will save them.
- Make the villain's cruelty the mechanism of his defeat.
- Note that the tale is Filipino-language folklore rendered by Rizal in English.
Try it yourself
Write a short comic story in which two partners split a windfall, the greedy one takes the impressive half and loses, and the story ends with the loser's victim escaping by begging not to receive the punishment he actually wants.
Questions
What is the moral of The Monkey and the Turtle?
Patience and cleverness defeat greed and strength. The turtle picks the useful half of the banana plant and later escapes by begging not to be thrown into the water, which is his home.
Who wrote The Monkey and the Turtle?
It is a Filipino folk tale with no single author. Jose Rizal wrote and illustrated an English version for Trübner's Record in London in 1889, comparing it with a Japanese fable.
How does the turtle escape the monkey?
He begs not to be thrown into the river. The monkey, wanting the cruellest death, throws him in, and the turtle swims away laughing.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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