Jonah The Reluctant Prophet

What fascinates me about the book of Jonah is how utterly AMAZING the whole story is.  God literally asks Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and speak out against it, condemning them for their wickedness.  Of course Jonah does what any sane person would do and flees instead.  What I find interesting about this is that if God was really all powerful wouldn't the people God is testing be more inclined to do what they say?  Something brings doubt into their hearts.
After Jonah flees God causes a storm and because Jonah is, in my mind, good he tells the sailors to throw him in the sea.
"He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you."" (Jonah 1:12)  And eventually they do.  In reading this story I couldn't help but think on where it came from and it occurred to me that it's very possible this could have been a story told amongst sailors to explain unrest in the ocean or stormy seas.
Jonah ends up being swallowed by a large fish that the Lord sends.  It says he was "in the belly of the fish three days and three nights".  This forces Jonah to finally turn to God.  When I read this I couldn't help but think about Pinocchio and it occurred to me that there definitely was a comparison between the two.
The ending of the story when looked at with Literary Criticism again draws back on the Torah.  God puts a bush over Jonah to shade him then appoints a worm to attack it.  This seems as if it could be a full circle to the burning bush Moses sees.  When Jonah gets angry about the bush we learn the lesson of this story.  "But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."  Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night."" (Jonah 4:9 - 10)