Zeynep and I’s reading was a little bit interesting. It drifted away from the intense literary driven texts we have been working on these past few weeks. In our discussion, we will be addressing the main themes of the reading for example, adultery , violence, gender disparities, misogyny, etc. Another interesting point we wanted to share with the class is Shahzamans’ immediate change in state of mind when he catches his brother’s wife having a great time with a guy from a tree. What is it about human nature that explains how the younger brother felt? As adultery represents one of the biggest theme in The thousand and One Night we thought it would be important to analyze how infidelity was dealt in the past compared to present day.
Throughout the story, women are not seeing in a positive light; from the first wife being disloyal, to the demon’s significant other sleeping with more than 90 men during her marriage. All of a sudden, we are presented to the Vizier’s daughter. “Would you sacrifice or risk your life if you were in Shahrazad’s shoes?”, “How are these women portrayed in the anecdotes and the story as a whole (Unfaithful wives, woman turned into a cow, belittled, etc.”).
To finish off the discussion, “What do all these stories have in common?”. One Thousand and One Nights is full of stories about the power of storytelling!