How Characters Emotional Changes Influence on the Story Flow?
Character behaviors in a text usually has close connection with development of the story. In other words, a lot of situations the characters find themselves in affect their psychological factors and, reversely, any behavior or the psychological factor can influence the content of the stories. Many readers get immersed in the story by sympathizing with characters’ emotions such as anger, happiness and confusion. In the frame story of Thousand and One Nights, readers can find various emotional changes in the characters and how character’s sentimental and behavioral changes affect other characters. Furthermore, they can find out what their actions mean in psychological view. Specifically, I want to address the behaviors of Shahzeman and his brother, king Shahrayar in this essay.
First, I would like to talk about the beginning of the characters’ emotional flow. The frame story starts with Shahzeman’s story. His queen has an affair with another man during his absence and he feels enormous anger and sense of betrayal. The readers can recognize Shahzeman’s feeling by watching his murder his queen. Shahzeman visit his brother, king Shahrayar, with a heavy heart and his depressed feelings are conveyed to Shahrayar when they meet. At first when Shahrayar meet Shahzeman after a long time, he is very glad and happy to see his brother again. In the meantime, he also feels concern that Shahzeman looks depressed and unhappy because of his wife’s affair. Meanwhile, Shahzeman witnesses his brother’s queen’s affair while king Shahrayar goes out hunting. At this point, he does not feel the anger or betrayal anymore as when his queen did, but he finds solace and feels relaxed. It can be recognized that he says, “By Allah, my mischance was lighter than this!”(Payne). After he saw that scene, he put away his melancholy and eats and drinks well again. It might be sound like ridiculous but can be interpreted as a rationalization which is one example of defense mechanism in psychological view. According to an article “Defense mechanisms in psychology today: Further processes for adaptation”, Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, described defense mechanism as a mental operation that kept painful thoughts and affects out of awareness. In addition, rationalization is described as a use of feeble but seemingly plausible arguments either to justify something that is difficult to accept or to make it seem ‘not so bad after all’ according to another psychological article, “Self-Deception: Rationalization”. In other words, even though what Shahzeman had experienced before he witnessed Shahrayar’s queen’s affair was something similar happened as to him and very hard to accept, he tries to comfort himself by thinking that this is more grievous than what happened to him. His brightened face and attitude originated in his emotional change make his brother, king Shahrayar, wonder what happened to him. The emotions Shahrayar feels to here are relatively general. However, his emotion begins to fluctuate after he is told about the queen’s affair by Shahzeman and it becomes a crucial factor to lead the story to a climax.
When he hears about the queen’s affair, he is shocked and does not want to believe it. Readers might be able to figure it out when Shahrayar says that, “I must see this with my own eyes” (Payne). This reaction can be recognized as a denial which is another type of defense mechanisms in psychological point of view. According to an article “Defense Mechanisms”, denial involves blocking external events from awareness. In other words, if some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it. I would say Shahrayar feels ‘denial’ and he may not want to believe that horrible news from his brother. Finally, however, he finds out that the queen’s affair was true and feels greatly frustrated. It can be found that he says, “Arise, let us depart hence, for we have no concern with kingship, and wander till we find one to whom the like has happened as to us, else our death were better than our life” (Payne). Shahzeman suggests the king to leave a journey to find one to whom something similar has happened as to them and Shahrayar accepts it. This journey to find someone else experience something similar happened to them also can be seen as another example of psychological rationalization.
On the journey, they meet a lady. Unfortunately, the journey does not become a solution of their ordeals. The lady’s unfaithful behavior leads Shahrayar feels inexpressible anger and betrayal rather than relieves him. He even has distrust towards women, thinking that all women are lustful and always cheating their man. His misdeeds beginning with his rabid emotions allow him to act like a misogynist meaning that a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. As reported by an article “The Psychology Behind Misogyny”, Dr. Berit Brogaard refers to misogyny as “hatred of women” as unconscious, Brogaard speaks of this unconscious hatred as growing into the fear processing and memory areas of the brain as its tiny stem works its way into frontal areas of the brain, affecting emotion and rational decision-making. It can be explained through his merciless murder of women after the he comes back to his palace. This extremely violent behavior might come from his resentment originated in the queen’s affair. His cruel mass murder, however, will end when he meets Shehrzad.
It is very important to grasp fully the sense of character emotions when read a text because sometimes psychological and emotional change of the characters plays a big role in story development. In Thousand and One Nights, the King Shahrayar’s feeling, especially his anger toward the queen’s affair, acts as a dramatic composition of the story. In some ways, Shahrayar’s violent and ruthless killing that begins from queen’s betrayal is necessary element in the unfolding of the narrative. Although I only addressed the sentiments of two characters in frame story, many other stories in Thousand and One Nights usually develop theirs stories by combining various character emotional changes and behaviors they bring and creating conflicts. In addition, reading texts considering how their emotions lead them do specific behaviors is also very helpful to comprehend the characters. In conclusion, I would say that readers can gain greater insight and improve ability to think by not only watching what characters do but also judging the character’s behavior and trying to find out the reason and the psychological factors.