Shahrazad plans to marry the king to hopefully prevent him from marrying and killer more women in the kingdom. Her father, the king’s vizier, knows that she is putting her life at risk and tell her a story called “The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey” where a donkey gives an ox advice, but this ends up having bad consequences for the donkey. The father told this story to try to teach his daughter that unnecessary involvement can make the situation worse. He then tells her another tale called “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife” which starts from where the first story left off only teaching a different lesson. It is about the merchant’s wife being curious about why his husband laughed, this led to a series of events which led to the wife being beaten. The moral of this story is that curiosity can lead to a bad outcome.
These two stories are the only ones told by Shahrazad’s father to her, while the rest are told by Shahrazad to the King. The narrative style of these stories is that they are two separate stories teaching different lessons, but one is a continuation of the other. This style is used throughout the 1001 Arabian Nights, since Shahrazad always stops at a cliffhanger to keep the King’s interest, but when she continues telling the stories they have different titles.
The stories also show the geographic location and time period of when these stories were told. This is shown in the story of the merchant and his wife. When everyone knew the merchant was about to die everyone was mourning, but after the merchant beat his wife where he wasn’t forced to reveal his secret, there was celebration because he wasn’t going to die, but also because he properly managed his wife in their eyes. It is obvious that in this time women could have been considered a little more than property and despite the wife being brutally beat this was still a cause for celebration. Also they repeat God many times, which gives an idea about the geographical region the stories take place.
Although One Thousand And One Nights was originally Arabian literature, it is an important, indispensable part of everyone’s childhood memory in the modern world, no matter which culture we are from. Every story in this series is very entertaining while highly educational at the same time. To me, One Thousand And One Night, together with Anderson, Aesop and Grimm’s fairy tales are always the fundamental building blocks of the Western World in my mind.
There is a very interesting fact that how it is different when we read the same story ten years ago and ten years later. When we read it at the age before ten, we think very simply – how good people can always be blessed and submerged in fortune in “Alibaba and The Forty Thieves” (which was not included in our book but it is my favorite); how smart it is for the fisherman to save his life from the demon in “the Fisherman and The Demon”, as well as how “curiosity kills a cat” in “The Merchant and His Wife”. Now, we have grown up and we all have our own rules of justice, and we start questioning and thinking about more complicated issues revealed behind these stories, just like what you wrote – women’s status in different societies as well as the influence of God to different cultures.
I think it very brave of Shahrazad to sacrifice herself for the wellbeing of her kingdom, but also foolish of her because she playing Russian roulette with her life. Who’s to say that the king wouldn’t had want to finish hearing the rest of her stories then she surely would have died, but many would argue that it was a noble thing to do. Also I find it very ironic the reason the king is committing these gruesome murders, for the cunningness of women. Little does he know that he is being deceived again by Shahrazad, but this time not thru cheating and personal desires of the body. She uses her intellectual mind to trick him into keeping her and every woman in the kingdom alive thru her on going stories. This shows how crafty women can be.