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?
I also agree that the stories the daughter of the vizier telling are very redundant and similar. I do not see what lessons nor topics the stories want to convey to the readers. One thing clear about why Shahrazade is desperate to marry the king is to change him through the stories she tells every night. I guess she believes she can change him through the stories. She is very confident with herself because otherwise it is so clear that she will be put to death by her own father. The stories are usually about punishing the bad by spells. Each story ends by good people punish the bad with spells. Maybe Shahrazade wants to acknowledge the king to learn from the stories. Because she cannot directly tell the king he is wrong so should change, she indirectly tells the king. However, I do not understand the king why he very quietly waits for the next night to be told the stories.
I believe the reason why the editor translated ‘djinni’ to ‘demon’ is that he wanted to convert not only a word to word but meaning of words. Since many of Americans do not know what ‘djinni’ means. A word, ‘Demon’ makes English speaking reader easier to understand the image of ‘djinni.’ But djinni is interesting. Is this word related to ‘Genie’ in ‘Aladin’? It looks like ‘Genie’ comes from ‘djinni.’
In addition, I agree with the comic. I read this book when I was eleven years old and I thought the same thing. Why Shahryar did not make Sharazade telling stories in day time if Shahryar really wanted to be told the stories? He could force Sharazade to tell stories in a day time and kill her after she tells everything. When I was young, I thought that Shahryar maybe fell in love to Sharazade.
I think these are great questions to bring up, and I do agree that it’s obvious Shahryar could have simply forced Sharazade to finish telling her stories. However, the fact that he did not actually shows that he’s not completely cruel and was only acting so rashly because he felt obligated to. It supports the backstory of how he was hurt by his wife’s betrayal and acted out of fury because he didn’t know what else to do. He no longer wanted to feel so vulnerable and dishonored yet he still wanted to have a wife, and this emotional gridlock between his heart and his mind is what pushed him to implement the system of killing one wife everyday.
To summarize, my opinion is that Sharyar was only acting unreasonably in an attempt to put up a front and protect himself. However, Sharazade was able to convince him that she was harmless for the time being. By giving him these stories, she showed that she had something to offer too as opposed to only taking from him. This allowed the king to let his guard down and know that it was a mutual exchange, and not just loss on his part. Ultimately, I think that is what persuaded Sharyar not to kill her; not only the fact that she was telling him stories, but because she was the only woman who showed up with something to give him as well.