Growing up we’ve all heard at least one story from The Thousand and One Nights. But I had no idea that The Thousand and One Nights that I remembered was all censored. Original “adult” version shows women being manipulative, evil, dissolute, and perverted. It seems like even demons were better than women. My question is why is it that all women in The Thousand and One Nights are shown as evil?
When the vizier is trying to talk his daughter Shahrazad out of marrying the king, he tells her this popular saying, “I would be sitting pretty, but for my curiosity.” What do you think about this saying?
That is a very interesting point that you have brought up about women. Both wives and the beautiful woman from the demon are represented as an over-sexualized figure. They all have cheated on their husbands. Even though the beautiful woman is trapped and she does this to get revenge on the demon. They still give off a negative perception in the eyes of the reader. It is sad to see that this is something that happened in our great works and it still goes on now. Women are brainwashed to look and act a certain way due to the mass media. Commercials and TV shows create women that are impossible to measure up too and this causes others to strive to be them even though it is sometimes unrealistic. Women deserve better and this is a problem that is going to keep being an issue.
I also agree that women in Thousands and One Night are described very dissolute and perverted. I personally think demons are somehow described moral than women by trying to kill the merchant for the revenge of his son. I believe the collections in the Thousands and One Night are trying to give lessons from women’s misbehavior, usually betrayal of husband. Maybe the lessons are about what goes after betrayal and therefore betrayal, especially to men, is unacceptable. Women all cheated and betrayed their husbands. The beautiful woman of the demon also cheated on men. All the images women give are negative and give only negative images of women to the readers. I think the saying the vizier says to his daughter means not to take an action actively even being desperate to know. I am still uncertain about the saying though.
Surprisingly enough, I haven’t actually ever heard of a Thousand and One Nights before until the reading. It was only until our last class that I realized that Aladdin is a story from this collection. I also really agree with what you said on how women are perceived in the story. They are portrayed as cunning and manipulative. They take up any opportunity in the story to cheat on their husbands. In my opinion, they might be portrayed in this way to show that there must be some control over women. Which is actually really interesting when you think of the type of roles they already have in their society. Maybe it’s to control them further?
When I first read this story, I had no recollection of ever reading it. But as I continued on I started thinking I might have read this book before because it started to seem a little familiar. I’m sure if I have read this book before, it was probably a more “PG rated” version than the one we read. Reading this version though definitely seemed to portray women as evil, manipulative and very sexual. I did question why this version made women posses these traits. I thought it was unfair for the women but then this makes this think that the men look pitiful in these stories. When the vizier quoted to Shahrazad, his daughter “I would be sitting pretty, but for my curiosity” I think he is trying to warn his daughter that curiosity can lead her to trouble. He was worried for Shahrazad’s life and he probably thought that his daughter wouldn’t be able to change the King’s mind.