The first story is about a kings saw his wife was cheating on him with a cook, he was so angery he killed his wife and the cook. This is the first story of Thouthand and one night and also the background story of how the king became a tyrant. Is the story the king met a woman that was kidnapped by a demon and and she take revenge on the demon by forceing the king to sleep with her. The king learned from women he experienced that women are not to be trusted. But the forgot that his situation does not fit with other cases, he sees few betrayal and makes the conclusion that women can not be trusted. The king was blinded because he wanted to find badness within people’s heart and not trying to seek goodness.

1) What is the purpose of the story, as far as the storyteller is concerned? What is he or she trying to accomplish? 

The purpose of the story is to warn. The storyteller is concerned about sending his daughter to King Shahrayar because she will be killed on the second day. Therefore he tried to use The tale of the ox and the donkey to warn her about her thought of meeting King Shahrayar to stop him from killing anymore women. In the tale, the Donkey advised the Ox to act different than usual so the Ox can relax and will not have to work as much. However, the Donkey miscalculated, it ends up doing all the work for the Ox because the Ox refused to work based on the Donkey’s suggestion. The storyteller is trying to warn his daughter, if she has miscalculated, she will encounter similar situation as the Donkey. She will be in trouble, in this case, it is death.

2) What, if any, is the lesson that the listener(s) take away from the story? 

If there is any lesson that the listener can take away from the story, it is understanding that  she might not be completely correct in her calculation. Even if she is smart, like the Donkey at the beginning. She will be in danger when she gets herself involve in the situation, like when the Donkey involved itself with the Ox’s trouble. If she has miscalculated her plan when she meets the King, she will be killed by the king.

The purpose of the story is to show us how someones world can be turned upside down when someone who you thought was faithful turns out to be the opposite. In the story two powerful kings who are brothers find out that their wives have been having affairs with people who don’t have a fraction of their power. Both kings were cheated on and killed their wives and the person that they slept with and decided to leave the palace and see if anyone in the world had such bad fortune as they did. They found a demon carrying a woman that he stole on her wedding day. The demon had her in a glass box with four locks on it and this is because he tried to preserve her virginity not knowing that she actually is not a virgin. The two kings are forced by the woman to make love to her while the demon is asleep. This was proof to the kings that they were not the only ones with misfortune seeing that the woman has slept with 100 men. They went back home and said to each other to only sleep with a woman for one night and then to kill them so they wont get cheated on.

The lesson for the listeners of this story is to stay faithful to the one you choose to marry. The story does make it seem as if women are the bad ones here but it goes both ways. The storyteller tries to show us that maybe people are not meant to be with only one person and they are polygamists. There is moral and law that goes when you marry someone. The moral part is to stay faithful and true to your partner and the law part sort of forces us to stay with one person where if you are unfaithful you will lose your house or kids to your partner. Maybe people are not meant to be monogamists.

Some questions i had about this story:

1) Are the slaves of the king also his sexual partners ?

2) Why was the younger brother so happy when he found out his brother was being cheated on?  i understand that he felt that he wasn’t the only one but he wasn’t a bit sad about it just happy.

3) Why would the demon release the woman on land and keep her locked in the middle of the sea where no one can reach in anyway ?

What is the purpose of the story, as far as the storyteller is concerned? What is he or she trying to accomplish? 

I’ll be talking about the tales of the Ox and Donkey. This tale is being told to daughter in hopes of a lesson she can learn. The father doesn’t want his daughter to marry a king who is known for killing his wives while in their sleep. In the tales of the Ox and Donkey the Ox complained that he does more work than the donkey. The donkey suggested for the ox pretend to be too exhausted to work. Doing so allowed the ox to go back but causing the donkey to pick up the work. The donkey advice ended up helping the ox but at the same time hurting him. Taking his easy layback lifestyle away into an everyday working animal. In some perspective this is a negative outcome and in another perspective it’s positive. Helping a friend at all cost may be worth it to some people while other person rather just help only when it has no cost. The donkey advice towards the ox is a representation of the daughter, just because the daughter can help find a way or the kings to stop murdering his wives do not mean she should try. If she fails she dies and that is not worth the risk of saving other females from dying. Even after the story the daughter still begs the father to go. The daughter do not seem to scared that she might die because she feel that even though the donkey lost his easy life style he still ended up helping a friend even though it hurts him. The daughter can give it a shot

The tale of the Ox and the Donkey

In the Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, the Ox is suffering and the Donkey is annoyed. The donkey gives the Ox halfhearted advice with not the best intent. Yet the Ox believes it is great advice and proceeds with the plan. It actually works out for the Ox. He is saved and he is comfortable. But the advice turns sour on the Donkey, as he now becomes to target for the torture.

The Vizier told this story to his daughter Shaharazad. The purpose was to warn her. She had an idea to save the women from the King. The king was marrying a new woman every night, sleeping with her and killing her in the morning. Shaharazad came up with a way to stop that from happening. The Vizier told his daughter this story hoping to convince her to not go through with her plan. Just like the Donkey had a plan in the story, he made a miscalculation. He did not anticipate the plan to back fire on him as it did. The Vizier wanted to save his daughter from making the same mistake. He believed along the lines, she made a miscalculation in her plan. Giving herself to the King was certain death as he was determined to kill every woman he slept with. With such dangerous conditions, the Vizier believed a slight miscalculation such as the one the Donkey made could easily cost Shaharazad her life.

1) What is the purpose of the story, as far as the storyteller is concerned? What is he or she trying to accomplish? I think the storyteller is using the story of the Ox and the Donkey as a warning of what could happen if you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong or act before you try to decide what kind of situation you could potentially put yourself in. f the donkey thought through what could possibly happen if he told the ox how to get out of working, he would have never said anything and he would still be living his better life than life of the ox. The storyteller is forewarning his daughter that there is a chance good could come out of her trying to stop the king, there is also a chance that she could end up ruining her own life just as the donkey did with his own life.

2) What, if any, is the lesson that the listener(s) take away from the story? 

The daughter or listener still insisted that she must go to marry the king after everything that her father has told her. He tried to and warned her that there is danger in rushing to conclusions and not thinking about consequences that could arise due to a poor decision. You could be doing a greater harm than good if you are not quick to realize what or why you are doing the the things you are doing, as in his daughters case, agreeing to marry the king.

The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey

The purpose of this story was for the Vizier to warn his daughter Shaharazad of what she was getting herself into. She knew the King was on a mission to kill every woman he slept with. After getting cheated on by his wife, the King decided to marry a new woman each night, sleep with her, then kill her in the morning. Shaharazad saw this and thought she could be the one to stop him and save the women. However, the Vizier wanted his daughter to reconsider so he told her the story of the Ox and the Donkey.

In this story, the Donkey gave the Ox advice. The donkey did so to help the Ox but did not fully consider the consequences. At the end, the Ox was saved and very grateful to the Donkey but the advice back fired on the Donkey. Now the Ox was comfortable and the Donkey was suffering. The Vizier told Shaharazad this story because the Donkey miscalculated what he was doing. He miscalculated and it turned out for the worse. In this case, the Vizier believed his daughter was miscalculating what she was trying to get herself into. He did not want her to go through with it because it could easily lead to her death. He was trying to save Shaharazad.

The king has made a promise to himself that he will kill every women he sleeps with to avoid being heartbroken. The king thinks that all women are unloyal and have evil sexual desires that they cannot control. The Kings vizier carries out the executions and is exposed to the Kings madness first hand. The viziers’s daughter tells her father that she plans to “calculate” a plan to sleep with the king and change his ways before he kills all the women of the city. The vizier is very upset and tell his daughter of a story between a donkey and an ox. The vizier is sure that she will fail and is highly against his daughters plan. The purpose of the viziers tale is to use a similar example to show his daughter that things don’t always workout the way you plan them. The vizier is using framing narrative to dissuade From sleeping with the king. I really enjoyed this form of writing because it gave me better insight and more clarity to the situation being discussed in the story. After reading the prologue as well as this tale the reader Can take away many lessons. The main lesson I took away from this story is to never judge a situation without having more insight on the topic at hand. I also learned that it is bad to generalize as all people are different and it is best to deal with situations in more specific less extreme way. I really enjoy reading works of literature that use this kind of narrative because it gives me more material to better grasps the writers concept.

[The Story of the Merchant and the Demon]

This story is about a merchant which one day rode and walked for certain counties to which he called his business. As the heat was stifling, sat under a tree, and laying hold the sack of provisions, took some dates, and when he had eaten pulled far bones. But suddenly there appeared an old demon, brandishing a sword, came to the merchant and said, “Get up, that I kill you as you killed my son.” The merchant replied: “But how I’ve killed your son?” the old man said, by throwing the stone, chest got my thread and killed him. Then said the merchant: Consider oh great demon I can not lie, being, as I am a believer I have much wealth, I have children and wife, and also keep in my house deposits that they trusted me Let me go back to hand it of each, and I’ll pick as to. You have my promise and my oath to be right back to you. And you then do with me what you will.

The purpose of vizier’s daughter, Shahrazad telling story is to survive another night. She must always keep alive the interest of the cruel king’s Shahrayar, thus her creativity, talent of telling story, knowledge, accomplishing save her life one more day. Even when she knew that Shahrayar would kill her next day she was willing to undertake a risky but well-crafted plan to finish once with such barbarity. Her plan was to make the king forget all his hatred of women, showing the best qualities and inner beauty of women. With her story, Shahrazad had survived successive nights, and she will continue entertaining the powerful king Shahrayar and not end up murdered like the rest of the other women.

These stories are cause for reflection and above all, a form of communication. The reflection is given by telling story, and does stories try to tell us that you can forgive, change your mind, or even do thing different to inspire other.

As far as the Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, the Vizier is trying to prove a point to his daughter. He is trying to get her to understand that her curiosity will most likely get her killed. That had the Donkey not given the Ox any advice, he would still be laying comfortably, drinking clean water and eating all day. This can be the case for Shahrazad in the eyes of the Vizier. He thinks that she is underestimating the consequences of her willingness to help. That in this situation she will be Donkey, and for trying to help will only end up dead. In the eyes of her father this could all be avoided if she just reasons with him and decides not to go. Shahrazad automatically dismisses the tale, and does not listen to one bit of it. The minute her father finishes the story, she is quickly begging him to let her go and spend the night with the king. She believes her plan will work and that she can get the king to stop killing all the girls he sleeps with. We get the sense that the reason she ignores her fathers words, are because the story does not relate. She does not want to help, out of curiosity, or is doing this impulsively. Therefore she does not believe it will be a miscalculation. She has though through a plan and feels confident that it will work. Also had the Donkey not butted in, the Ox will still be getting mistreated and suffering. So even though it backfired for the Donkey, he helped the Ox out. Maybe Shahrazad does not want to stand by and keep watching all these girls get taken away and killed. She wants to step in and at least try and fix this situation. So in a sense the tale might have even fueled her more to go and spend the night with the king.

So far, stories have been used as proof and reasoning for the decisions characters make.