In The Thousand and One Nights, Shahrayar was a king who went mad and killed many women in the kingdom due to his wife’s infidelity. He would spend the night with a woman and kill her the next morning. Shahrazad, the vizier’s educated daughter, tells her father to marry her to Shahrayar so that she may have an opportunity to change his ways through storytelling. Storytelling as a way to teach lessons is prominent throughout The Thousand and One Nights and in an article in The New York Times “An Israeli Novelist Writes of Pain, Private and Public” by Ethan Bronner.
The New York Times article explains the novel To the End of the Land written by David Grossman around the time of his youngest military son’s death. This story, which can somewhat be compared to Grossman’s own life, teaches the lesson about the “importance of home.” Though Shahrazad tries to teach Shahrayar different lessons, there is an overall lesson being taught. Shahrazad is trying to teach him that killing women the morning after he spends the night with them is wrong.
In the article, Grossman “entertained the illusion that by writing…, he was somehow protecting his children.” In The Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazad was also telling these stories as protection. Shahrazad tells her father “I would like you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving people or perish and die like the rest.” (B, 414) She is telling these stories not only to save her life, but to save the lives of the rest of the women in the kingdom.
