How do the fox's characteristics relate to the moral of "The Fox and the Grapes"?

The fox's characteristics are related to the moral or message of Aesop's Fable "The Fox and the Grapes" because he is lustful but lazy and scornful and contemptuous.

The moral of the fable is that many people pretend to despise things that are beyond their reach. Initially, when the fox believes that he can get the grapes, they are described as beautiful, ripe, and so succulent that they were “ready to burst with juice.” The bunch of grapes are hanging from a branch of the tree that is so high that the fox has to jump to reach them. Each time he jumps, he misses them.

At the point when the fox realizes that he cannot obtain the grapes, he thinks of them as sour. Yet, the grapes have not changed. They are just as ripe and succulent looking as they were originally. It is the fox that has changed his view of them because he is too lazy to come up with a strategy to obtain them.

So he “look[s] at the grapes in disgust,” though just moments earlier "he gazed longingly at them,” and the sight of the grapes earlier made his mouth water. Once he realizes the grapes are beyond his reach, he belittles them.

However, are the grapes truly beyond the fox's reach, or is the fox unwilling to work to attain them? As soon as he becomes frustrated about his attempts to get the grapes, he sits down. Why does he not try to climb up instead to reach the grapes? He's not willing to make the effort.

A fable is a very small "tale" (written as prose—straight writing—or verse, also called poetry) which includes:

animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature...

In Aesop's Fable, "The Fox and the Grapes," we see that the fox had admirable determination, using all his strength to reach the grapes that are growing just too far out of his reach. Finally, frustration gets the best of the fox and he quits, but as he does so, he shows what a poor sport he is. Like a small child, he tries to rationalize that not getting the grapes wasn't such a big deal because they weren't worth having in the first place.

Rather than facing the fact that he just wasn't able to get the grapes, the fox acts as if the grapes were always unimportant, taking his failure out of the picture. The comment about being "sour grapes" describes someone that has nothing positive to say about a situation, but chooses to criticize it. The expression "sour grapes" finds its origins in...

..."The Fox and the Grapes"... It refers to pretending not to care for something one does not or cannot have.

Phaedrus summarizes the fable's moral as:

People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.

The fox's poor sportsmanship, or his inability to "win" what he wants and then criticizes the very thing he wanted are characteristics that fit with the practice of some people who have nothing good to say about something if it doesn't reflect well on them. The moral of the story is directed at those people who criticize what they cannot get or do, diverting attention away from themselves, which is what the fox does.

What character traits does the fox reveal in Aesop's "The Fox and the Grapes"?

In Aesop's Fable of "Tthe Fox and the Grapes," we learn that the fox wants a cluster of grapes hanging from a trees. He tries over and over to jump high enough to reach for them, with no success.

This fable has been "covered" by several writers after it was presented as a part of Aesop's Fables.

First of all, a fable is a very small "story" (either presented as prose—straight writing—or verse, also known as poetry) which includes:

animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature...

These creatures or things are personified. When this happens, the subject of the personfication is said to be "anthropomorphized" which is when human qualities are given to non-human things. The fable includes a moral (as in "moral to the story") which is the statement of a "life-truth." The moral of the story may then be presented in a "pithy maxim." In "The Tortoise and the Hare," the moral is: slow and steady wins the race.

For "The Fox and the Grapes," we learn that the fox being very hungry has tried in vain to reach the grapes. When he gives up in failure, he comments, "I don't need any sour grapes," he is basically trying to say that his failure means nothing since the grapes weren't worth the effort anyway. (This is probably where the description of someone being "sour grapes" comes from.)

The fox is hard-working to an extent. He uses all his strength to jump as high as he can. He is perhaps not very realistic as the fruit is too far off of the ground, but we can admire his attempts. However, his attitude is rather negative at the end. Because he is unsuccessful, rather than acknowleding his inability to reach his goal, he redirect our attention away from himself, noting not his failure, but the fact that the grapes are probably not worth the effort and that he is better off. There is no validation in that statement, so he is simply making excuses.

In Jean de La Fontaine's version of the fable, the fox's last line has an ironic twist—and a pun:

"Better, I think, than an embittered whine".

(Note how "whine" is used, as opposed to "wine" which comes from grapes.) Another author, Phaedrus, writes this closing line—the fable's maxim:

People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.

The fox is like many children who want to borrow someone's toy or play in a game, and they are not allowed; their comment is something like, "Well, I didn't want to play in that dumb old game anyway." And this is the fox: childish, with a need to put down something he cannot have.