Well, this second half of the Selections is not so much many stories, but a few stories stretched out over several nights. Way to save up on brainpower by not having to think up a new story every single night, Shahrazade.

Anyhow, she continues with the themes of deceitful women as mentioned in the post about the first half. We’re not even thirty nights in and it feels like a dead horse trope. I’ve also noticed that she raises the theme of a cruel and/or controlling king, as seen in the last three stories. This raises the question: Is Shahrazade trying to send a message about Shahryar?

I found ‘The Tale of the Enchanted King’ particularly interesting. Besides the fact that the previously mentioned themes of a deceitful woman and a cruel/controlling king are hammered in, it also displays a deceitful side to the king in the latter part of the tale when he attempts to trick his wife to change back the city. This hasn’t been seen before in the previous stories, at least not to this degree. Trickery is usually reserved for the woman. Why would this tale give the man a (stereotypically) woman’s trait? Was it to challenge the male/female dichotomy that was so common in literature of this time period or am I reading too deeply into it and it’s just to move the plot along?

As much as I find this read entertaining, at this point, I’m starting to find the stories somewhat redundant, at least in the sense that the same themes and tropes are always there. Besides the previous tropes mentioned, a talking a animal is often brought up, a demon is messing with everybody (Why did the author translate ‘djinni’ to ‘demon’? The two have very little in common.) perhaps a poor character will stumble upon riches, and twice now someone has been partially turned into black stone. Still, the servants are enthralled by Sharazade’s stories, to say nothing of Shahryar. Was everyone at the royal court just that bored or do they just not notice the repeating tropes? Maybe it’s a testament to Shahrazade’s storytelling genius that she is able to rehash these same ideas over and over again and still make for an entertaining listen.

Oh, and before I go, I found this comic. It doesn’t add much to the conversation but it is relevant and rather humorous.

Actually, that raises another question: why didn’t Shahryar try something like this sooner if he wanted the whole story?