I recently found this comic, which deconstructs the premise of Thousand and One Nights in a humorous, yet also dark, manner.
While I found it funny, it got me thinking. The idea of the actual story is that the King is convinced to delay the execution each night to hear more of the stories. But seeing as he authorized his authority from the get-go to claim a woman to execute every night, what is stopping him from overriding the rule to delay the execution, and hear the rest of the story then and there? Can we infer more about the King’s emotions/motivations from this?
Perhaps we can percieve he has a tinge of guilt from executing all those women, combined with his desire to hear the rest of the stories, allows himself to continue delaying the execution? Something to think about.
Hey Fabio,
I don’t think King Shahrayar has even an ounce of guilt, let alone a “tinge”. The whole reason he married Shahrazard was to kill her. I think the underlying reason he hasn’t killed Shahrazard is because of the stories. Perhaps, you should’ve posted a quote or excerpt from the text illustrating some guilt shown by King Shahrayar. I enjoyed the cartoon that you posted. It is a funny summarization of the text. I am curious to see if the cartoon and the text have similar endings.
I really enjoyed reading the comics that you posted. After I read your post, I kept on going back to your question because I never thought about it in that way. I think Shahrayar did not realize that he is guilty until he met Shahrazard. However, I believe he perceived his guilt from when Shahrazard tells the stories that contained a lot of different lessons. Since he is a human, he might learn some lessons from the stories and change his mind of executing the women every night.
Hey f.rivera,
I agree that the king feels guilty of killing all of those women after hearing the stories. Since Shahrazard’s stories is the reason he stops killing innocent people, he might realize what he had done was wrong and he should learn to forgive things and being a good king. People make mistakes and doing something insane when they are angry. Perhaps the king was waiting someone to stop him.