While reading the story of the Merchant and the Demon, I find it very interesting because there’s a lots of transformations. In my opinion, I think the whole story is all about the justice and forgiveness, which is very different compare to Medea and the king Shahrayar. For example, Medea and Shahrayar both take revenges and acting out their angers through killing innocent people. But in this sub story, people punish others by changing them into something else. For the first old man, his wife transforms the mistress into a cow and the son into a bull because she is so angry and jealous. This seems very unfair to the mistress and the son. However, she was transforms into a deer by the shepherd’s daughter because the daughter wants her to be responsible for what she done. As the daughter says, “No, but I will let her taste what she has inflicted on others” (Page 572, paragraph2). People are turned into deer and dogs, instead of getting killed. Also, the innocent merchant is set to free because of the help from the three old men, which shows justice with tolerance and forgiveness. However, my question is Do you guys think that the punishment of transformation is merciful/better compared to the punishment of death? Is there similarity between the king and the demon?
Hello Class,
Shahrazad has a plan to enchant Shahrayar by her stories so that he will want to keep hearing more. Her purpose is also to “address the problems of rule—both of oneself and of others—and teach the king how to restore order in his own realm and in his soul” (554). She aims to change his outlook on reality and prevent him from killing innocent women for revenge of a wrong inflicted on him by his wife. In essence, Shahrazad wants to downplay the terms of punishment. In this way, she tells Shahrayar stories in which wrongdoers are punished by being transformed into animals, instead of sentenced to death. In essence, the punishment of transformation is more merciful as compared to the punishment of death because it does not deprive people of life, but disables them from creating further harm by transforming them into helpless creatures.
Thank you for your insightful post!
Response to M.WU8’s post.
In terms of does the punishment fit the crime, I do not think transformation or death really are justifiable for infidelity. Most of us have felt that pain before, seeing someone you like or maybe even love betray you for someone else. It is as low a feeling as you can possibly reach. That being said, taking that person’s life is certainly out of the question. The point I was ultimately getting to would be to argue that transformation is worse than death. To be mentally aware of who you are/were as a human, and to be stuck in an animals body who cannot communicate to the humans around you has got to be more emotionally and mentally taxing than just being put out of your misery quickly. So my answer would be no, neither punishment fits the crime. In my opinion there is a similarity between the King and the Demon. That would be two individuals who were hurt in such a way that they are willing to go through any means necessary to gain revenge to bring peace to themselves.
In my opinion, the punishment of transformation is better compare to the punishment of death because the person who transformed into an animal can think about what he/she has done wrong. For instance, three brothers who transformed into dogs, can recall what they did wrong to their youngest brother and learn some lesson. However, if that person is put into death as a punishment, he/she cannot learn the lesson. I also think that there is some similarities between the king and the demon. Both of them enjoy listening to the stories and they were merciless in the beginning.
I thought it could be also viewed as this. The death is maybe rather be better in a sense that the transformation makes a woman more pathetic because once turned an animal, she can’t express anything, which could be very frustrating. Possibly some people think of themselves miserable with emotional stress and pain and want to rather die. For example (not really matching to the situation in this story though), in The Frog Prince, we could assume how desperate the prince was in his need of a kiss from the princess being an animal which couldn’t talk or express its emotion at all. And, as to a similarity between the king and demon, I think it would be their belief that they can’t trust women; so they have their own way of punishing them.
Thank you for your thoughts