This is a story about two brothers and their misfortune in life. Shahzaman “found[s] his wife lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys,” and kills “both his wife and the cook”. When Shahrayar, his older brother, went for hunting, Shazamama, who “stayed in the palace,” saw his brother’s wife with her lover, Mas’ud. Shahzaman finds a relief in this event. He realizes that, “everyone suffers” and, “find[s] consolation in his own affliction and forget his grief.” When Shahzaman tells his brother about their wives, they decide to go and find a person that suffers a greater misfortune than their own. It’s like a “contest” for them to see who suffers more, in order for them to win-feel better.
Its human nature, to feel a little bit better about one’s self, when hearing about others misfortune. We compare our troubles to others, exactly as Shahzaman feels better and begins eating when he sees that “he is no longer alone in his misery.”
But I wonder why is that we feel schadenfreude, which is according to Oxford Dictionary the “enjoyment of the misfortunes of others.”
It’s also interesting that Shahzaman sees his brother’s wife cheating and he doesn’t tell his brother about that. Instead as you said enjoys his life again. Somehow you can understand him that he doesn’t want his brother know that his wife is not loyal and this whole time his wife was sleeping with other man behind his back. This is also a terrible feeling.
Another thing that caught my attention is that when young woman, that demon carries around in his glass chest, says: “Nothing can prevent or alter what is predestined and that when a woman desires something, no one can stop her.”, and I think this is why both brothers’ wives cheat on them in their own palace without any fear. Someone could easily catch them or see them just like Shahzaman does.
After reading I was able to pull a couple morals within the reading. “if you really want something, you’ll think of ways to get to it.” Seeing as how the young women the demon keeps prisoner is able to get her desires fulfilled. Another was the basic karma moral with the Ox and the Donkey tale. The Donkey thinks he could make the Ox suffer more but instead creates a situation where he himself suffers.
Referring back to “The Tale of the Ox and Donkey”, I thought it was interesting that the entire story was told simply to teach the daughter to not go looking for danger. Yet, it is obvious that the daughter, Sharahzad, will do just that, a complete contrast to the women we’ve been introduced to thus far. In fact, all women we’ve seen in the first few pages have been the “antagonists”; they deceive and then hope to sneak away from their troubles. Even the merchant’s wife is a “problem”, in the way in that she ignores her husband’s imminent death for her own satisfaction. This educated Sharahzad is so different from these (mostly) overly sexual women, whom the kings of the story eventually emulate.
I agreed with the first common that I found it a bit odd when Shahzaman did not tell his brother when he saw his wife sleeping with another man. I’m not sure why he finds himself a relief after he find out that event, and from my point of view, if I put myself into that situation it will just make me suffer more because I will not know what to do. Depict the fact that his brother already knows the truth, if he did not know, one of them is going to suffer for this truth. It’s going to be either Shahzaman himself suffering for the decision to tell or not, or his brother after learning the truth.