"The Arabian Nights"
Wolran Kim
September 2013
If your story is not fun, you will be killed the next morning! The story holds a mortgage on your life; this is a very interesting set. Arabian Nights is an amusing story no doubt, because Shahrazad was not killed and lived happily. Readers can read with a full expectation and belief. I only remember Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and the story of Ali Baba, which is not included in the original Arabian Nights.
The prologue begins with the affair of the two king’s wives. When I was a kid under the influence of Confucian society, all love or physical relationships between man and woman seemed corrupt to me. Thus, I had been disappointed about the fact that man-woman relationships are a motif in almost all of famous classic literature. But what would you do? The relation of man-woman is the beginning of the human race and a tool of survival.
Human beings will disappear in a hundred years if there is no instinctive feeling between males and females. The scene, Shahzaman regains his health from his brother’s tragedy showing the deceitfulness of humans. People have a cowardly nature, finding their comfort in others’ misery.
The heroine’s courage and wisdom become triggers to continue the story of 1001 days. These reasons are also what should be to save Shahrazad and innocent women’s lives from the king’s imprudent revenge. Each trigger shows a characteristic of human nature. Shahrayar goes hunting alone, leaving his brother behind; consider this in parenthood, no parent goes to a picnic, leaving a sick child.
He did not think seriously about his brother’s sickness because Shahzaman came from outside of his territory. However, he really wants to know the hidden secret of what makes his brother change after coming back to his place, because something must be related to his territory. This is the egoistic mind behind brotherhood. Two stories from the Vizier express the father’s anxiety that he wants to persuade his daughter who might be killed. However, Shahrazad asserted herself. If I were her father, I would have tied and locked her up to prevent her from jumping into the fire instead of telling stories. Did he not witness the death of many innocent women? No, then, Arabian Nights would not have been born.
In the Vizier’s story, the donkey who is out-witted by his own cleverness tries to give a lesson to Shahrazad. Comparing this to the merchant’s wife who succumbed to the beating, Shahrazad’s courage looks like an advantage to the heroine’s sacrifice. One person’s bravery and pioneered behavior often changed the world even in history and reality. There is a Korean proverb: one word may pay off a heap of debts. Shahrazad’s courage and wisdom save the world. Arabian Nights is also the confrontation between a heroine’s wisdom and the king’s outrage, which is framed with revenge and intelligence.
“Do not judge morally, but judge poetically,” and “Communicate with TEXT only!” These lessons from the class were really significant to me, because I am used to taking characters out of text and judging morally, not literally and poetically.
The comparison between the three women who commit adultery in the class discussion was really interesting. The first woman, King Shahzaman’s wife, brings the feeling of love to the readers through her love affair with a kitchen boy. The second woman, King Shahrayar’s wife, shows upgraded actions through the group sex party in the husband’s kingdom while the king was out. The last woman, the demon’s wife, seems to rise in revolt to the relationship between males and females. She almost raped two kings, and showed her evidence of the rings that were her history of her conquests in men.
These three women’s behavior proceeds step-by-step, and reaches their position as controller in the male dominant society. The Shahrayar, as king and as man, must feel a threat from the woman’s possibilities. The statuses of males and females could be overturned if females are in conspiracy with demons or any other evil power. Thus, the King Shahrayar’s cruel revenge toward women and Shahrazad’s sacrifice and courage seem to be granted more legitimacy in the text.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This structure consists of collections of stories framed inside a story. The background of two kings’ stories and Shahrazad’s reason to tell the stories is the opening of the whole plot. This prologue plays a role in the framed story. The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife give reasons why a heroine has to keep telling stories to play the role of a bridge. Omnibus structure leads readers’ attention through dynamic, exciting, fun, and curious connections.
The second and third stories are brought from a character (Vizier) in the first story to save his daughter as the narrator. The first story, The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter explains a desperate reason of why she is on her deathbed in the heroine’s story, the plot of the book.
The heroine, Shaharazad, is very different than the other women, two kings’ wives and a demon’s woman, who are all sluts. According to the text, “She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and refined. She had read and learned (11).” King Shahrayar says, “There is not a single chaste woman anywhere on the entire face of the earth (10).” However, Shahrazad must be ‘a single chaste woman.’ She goes to the king of Slayer with a dignified attitude to save all the other women and to stop the reckless sacrifice, even risking her life.
All the stories in the collection of episode are structurally very brief and simple events. There are only a few of the characters in each story, with temporal events happening and being solved in a short period of time. Three stories in the prologue are separated, but are also connected.
Surreal stories are mixed with reality beyond common sense. The faithless behaviors of the two queens are practical enough, but a demon’s woman and the personification of animals, such as an ox, donkey, dog, and rooster, is not practical at all. Moreover, these animals are much wiser than humans, and they help human choices with tricks and words. Interestingly, even through all the weirdness and unrealistic things that appear, the characters try to resolve their crises without using God, miracles, or mysterious concepts, but only with mental development in the human ability.
“He then swore to marry for one night only and kill the woman the next morning, in order to save himself from the wickedness and cunning of women (10).” If we compare this to bizarre animals, an angry king could ask his God to wipe off all women on the earth. However, this king became a coward who discarded all women after he used them, because he needs women also.
Personified animals give lessons through satire, and they are more wise and clever than humans. “As the ox listened, he was sure that the donkey had given him good advice (12).” The donkey taught the ox that he should pretend to be sick to avoid hard work. The donkey’s situation in which he gets into hot water from helping others with trickery is a lesson to Shahrazad and the intentions of her father. The purpose of a strange tale is artistic, interesting, and fun. This function plays to convince readers how Shahrayar gives up his sword and the heroine saves her life.
There is intentional transfer and the preaching of knowledge and lessons. The ending follows the rule of encouraging the good and punishing the evil.
“It became King Shahrayar’s custom ... then has her put to death the next morning (11).” The king kills all the women he slept with. He commits murder every day, and this is a brutal massacre, which may appear in modern horror stories. The king killing after selecting may stretch that metaphor to a human’s short and nihilistic life.
The emergence of the two kings, the two daughters of Vizier, the two queens, the chastity absent of all the female characters, the revenge of the two kings, multiple murders, misfortune of the two brothers and a demon, and dualistic religious views of God and demons are all parallel and comparison, repeated. There are numerous adaptations, imitations, and tributes; for example, King Shahzaman says to console himself, “This is our common lot (5),” after he saw his brother’s tragedy (unchastity of Brother’s wife). And in the same way, King Shahrayar says to console himself, “My brother Shahzaman, look at this sorry plight. By God, it is worse than ours (10).”
“he found his wife lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys (3),” and “a black slave jumped from the tree to the ground, rushed to her, and, raising her legs, went between her thighs and made love to her (5).” Here, two king’s wives are unfaithful to their husbands, and they are queens. The queens represent all women, thus all women became unchaste and unfaithful. Feminine virtue, marital bond, and traditional conventions between husband and wife are the background and the rood of the framed story. Sexuality is a common and also strong device to represent wickedness and cynicism of humans.
Compared to modern thought, only blaming females is not fair. (Two kings must have many royal harems.) We can see the prejudice of gender in those days; females are subordinated to males and dependent on males in India and Indochina during that period as well as in other ancient regions.
“By God, my misfortune is lighter than that of my brother (5),” Shahzaman says this after he watches his brother’s wife commit adultery. “... look at this sorry plight (10),” Shahrayar and fellow sufferers sympathize with a black demon after he watched and even participated in a woman’s carnal desire. Misery loves company, and this company succeeds in plentiful stories.
“She lifted the demon’s head from her lap and placed it on the ground (9).” The appearance of the demon and his woman is unrealistic and imaginary compared with previous happenings of the two kings and their wives. “This merchant was taught the language of the beasts, on condition that if he revealed his secret to anyone, he would die (12).” The language of the beasts and this ability of the merchant are also mysterious creations, which are far apart from reality.
“Women are not to be trusted (4),” “Great is women’s cunning (10).” A woman is a matter everywhere. Terms of woman and money or honor are the timeless leading roles of a troublemaker in reality, fiction, and even myths. The same issues are not an issue to males, but to females. Chastity of a woman is forced through customs of the times, and the different notions of gender are recognized as original creations.
“He got exceedingly angry (4),” “Shahzaman’s heart was on fire (4).” Here, an extreme expression of anger is devised to justify the killing habit of the king. This also is a description of the lesson that human rage paralyzes rationality. By rational anger, the king would just divorce or discard his wife, but he sacrifices all the other innocent women after killing his wife and related people. This is evidence that a woman is recognized as a member in the group, not as a noble character. “... never to marry a woman again (10),” “He then swore to marry for one night only and kill the woman the next morning (10).” Here, “never” and “swore” are the chief criminals to call misery and the entry of the heroine, Shahrazad.
The expressions of God, for God’s sake, by God, God’s blessing, and Alas are almost in every scene. God never appears directly. However, this shows the longing for God, the Creator, or the perfect existence part of human nature. Human beings are always looking for a dependable target. “By God, I am king and sovereign in Smarkand, yet my wife has betrayed me and has inflicted this on me (4).” Here, Shahzaman places his root in God. “When they looked again, they saw that it was a black demon (8),” There is always a good god and a bad god just like there are good men and bad men. We can see their dualism of religion in those days.
“But whenever he found himself alone and thought of his ordeal with his wife, he would sigh deeply, then stifle his grief, (4)” Here, “ordeal” means a painful or horrific experience; “the ordeal of having to give evidence,” unpleasant experience, painful experience, trial, tribulation, nightmare, trauma, hell (on earth), misery, trouble, difficulty, torture, torment, agony, and more "the hostages survived the ordeal.” Also, historically in ancient times, “ordeal” was a method of testing guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to severe pain such as burning from boiling water. So Trial by ordeal was a religious-judicial practice to determine “the will of God.” Here, betrayal by his wife is expressed as the same horrible pain to the two brothers.
“I am no longer alone in my misery; I am well (6).” “What happened to me is little by comparison ... everyone suffers (5).” Here, “comparison” is a meaningful word because it represents slyness of humans who take comfort from other’s tragedy.
Wolran Kim
September 2013
If your story is not fun, you will be killed the next morning! The story holds a mortgage on your life; this is a very interesting set. Arabian Nights is an amusing story no doubt, because Shahrazad was not killed and lived happily. Readers can read with a full expectation and belief. I only remember Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and the story of Ali Baba, which is not included in the original Arabian Nights.
The prologue begins with the affair of the two king’s wives. When I was a kid under the influence of Confucian society, all love or physical relationships between man and woman seemed corrupt to me. Thus, I had been disappointed about the fact that man-woman relationships are a motif in almost all of famous classic literature. But what would you do? The relation of man-woman is the beginning of the human race and a tool of survival.
Human beings will disappear in a hundred years if there is no instinctive feeling between males and females. The scene, Shahzaman regains his health from his brother’s tragedy showing the deceitfulness of humans. People have a cowardly nature, finding their comfort in others’ misery.
The heroine’s courage and wisdom become triggers to continue the story of 1001 days. These reasons are also what should be to save Shahrazad and innocent women’s lives from the king’s imprudent revenge. Each trigger shows a characteristic of human nature. Shahrayar goes hunting alone, leaving his brother behind; consider this in parenthood, no parent goes to a picnic, leaving a sick child.
He did not think seriously about his brother’s sickness because Shahzaman came from outside of his territory. However, he really wants to know the hidden secret of what makes his brother change after coming back to his place, because something must be related to his territory. This is the egoistic mind behind brotherhood. Two stories from the Vizier express the father’s anxiety that he wants to persuade his daughter who might be killed. However, Shahrazad asserted herself. If I were her father, I would have tied and locked her up to prevent her from jumping into the fire instead of telling stories. Did he not witness the death of many innocent women? No, then, Arabian Nights would not have been born.
In the Vizier’s story, the donkey who is out-witted by his own cleverness tries to give a lesson to Shahrazad. Comparing this to the merchant’s wife who succumbed to the beating, Shahrazad’s courage looks like an advantage to the heroine’s sacrifice. One person’s bravery and pioneered behavior often changed the world even in history and reality. There is a Korean proverb: one word may pay off a heap of debts. Shahrazad’s courage and wisdom save the world. Arabian Nights is also the confrontation between a heroine’s wisdom and the king’s outrage, which is framed with revenge and intelligence.
“Do not judge morally, but judge poetically,” and “Communicate with TEXT only!” These lessons from the class were really significant to me, because I am used to taking characters out of text and judging morally, not literally and poetically.
The comparison between the three women who commit adultery in the class discussion was really interesting. The first woman, King Shahzaman’s wife, brings the feeling of love to the readers through her love affair with a kitchen boy. The second woman, King Shahrayar’s wife, shows upgraded actions through the group sex party in the husband’s kingdom while the king was out. The last woman, the demon’s wife, seems to rise in revolt to the relationship between males and females. She almost raped two kings, and showed her evidence of the rings that were her history of her conquests in men.
These three women’s behavior proceeds step-by-step, and reaches their position as controller in the male dominant society. The Shahrayar, as king and as man, must feel a threat from the woman’s possibilities. The statuses of males and females could be overturned if females are in conspiracy with demons or any other evil power. Thus, the King Shahrayar’s cruel revenge toward women and Shahrazad’s sacrifice and courage seem to be granted more legitimacy in the text.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This structure consists of collections of stories framed inside a story. The background of two kings’ stories and Shahrazad’s reason to tell the stories is the opening of the whole plot. This prologue plays a role in the framed story. The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife give reasons why a heroine has to keep telling stories to play the role of a bridge. Omnibus structure leads readers’ attention through dynamic, exciting, fun, and curious connections.
The second and third stories are brought from a character (Vizier) in the first story to save his daughter as the narrator. The first story, The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter explains a desperate reason of why she is on her deathbed in the heroine’s story, the plot of the book.
The heroine, Shaharazad, is very different than the other women, two kings’ wives and a demon’s woman, who are all sluts. According to the text, “She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and refined. She had read and learned (11).” King Shahrayar says, “There is not a single chaste woman anywhere on the entire face of the earth (10).” However, Shahrazad must be ‘a single chaste woman.’ She goes to the king of Slayer with a dignified attitude to save all the other women and to stop the reckless sacrifice, even risking her life.
All the stories in the collection of episode are structurally very brief and simple events. There are only a few of the characters in each story, with temporal events happening and being solved in a short period of time. Three stories in the prologue are separated, but are also connected.
Surreal stories are mixed with reality beyond common sense. The faithless behaviors of the two queens are practical enough, but a demon’s woman and the personification of animals, such as an ox, donkey, dog, and rooster, is not practical at all. Moreover, these animals are much wiser than humans, and they help human choices with tricks and words. Interestingly, even through all the weirdness and unrealistic things that appear, the characters try to resolve their crises without using God, miracles, or mysterious concepts, but only with mental development in the human ability.
“He then swore to marry for one night only and kill the woman the next morning, in order to save himself from the wickedness and cunning of women (10).” If we compare this to bizarre animals, an angry king could ask his God to wipe off all women on the earth. However, this king became a coward who discarded all women after he used them, because he needs women also.
Personified animals give lessons through satire, and they are more wise and clever than humans. “As the ox listened, he was sure that the donkey had given him good advice (12).” The donkey taught the ox that he should pretend to be sick to avoid hard work. The donkey’s situation in which he gets into hot water from helping others with trickery is a lesson to Shahrazad and the intentions of her father. The purpose of a strange tale is artistic, interesting, and fun. This function plays to convince readers how Shahrayar gives up his sword and the heroine saves her life.
There is intentional transfer and the preaching of knowledge and lessons. The ending follows the rule of encouraging the good and punishing the evil.
“It became King Shahrayar’s custom ... then has her put to death the next morning (11).” The king kills all the women he slept with. He commits murder every day, and this is a brutal massacre, which may appear in modern horror stories. The king killing after selecting may stretch that metaphor to a human’s short and nihilistic life.
The emergence of the two kings, the two daughters of Vizier, the two queens, the chastity absent of all the female characters, the revenge of the two kings, multiple murders, misfortune of the two brothers and a demon, and dualistic religious views of God and demons are all parallel and comparison, repeated. There are numerous adaptations, imitations, and tributes; for example, King Shahzaman says to console himself, “This is our common lot (5),” after he saw his brother’s tragedy (unchastity of Brother’s wife). And in the same way, King Shahrayar says to console himself, “My brother Shahzaman, look at this sorry plight. By God, it is worse than ours (10).”
“he found his wife lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys (3),” and “a black slave jumped from the tree to the ground, rushed to her, and, raising her legs, went between her thighs and made love to her (5).” Here, two king’s wives are unfaithful to their husbands, and they are queens. The queens represent all women, thus all women became unchaste and unfaithful. Feminine virtue, marital bond, and traditional conventions between husband and wife are the background and the rood of the framed story. Sexuality is a common and also strong device to represent wickedness and cynicism of humans.
Compared to modern thought, only blaming females is not fair. (Two kings must have many royal harems.) We can see the prejudice of gender in those days; females are subordinated to males and dependent on males in India and Indochina during that period as well as in other ancient regions.
“By God, my misfortune is lighter than that of my brother (5),” Shahzaman says this after he watches his brother’s wife commit adultery. “... look at this sorry plight (10),” Shahrayar and fellow sufferers sympathize with a black demon after he watched and even participated in a woman’s carnal desire. Misery loves company, and this company succeeds in plentiful stories.
“She lifted the demon’s head from her lap and placed it on the ground (9).” The appearance of the demon and his woman is unrealistic and imaginary compared with previous happenings of the two kings and their wives. “This merchant was taught the language of the beasts, on condition that if he revealed his secret to anyone, he would die (12).” The language of the beasts and this ability of the merchant are also mysterious creations, which are far apart from reality.
“Women are not to be trusted (4),” “Great is women’s cunning (10).” A woman is a matter everywhere. Terms of woman and money or honor are the timeless leading roles of a troublemaker in reality, fiction, and even myths. The same issues are not an issue to males, but to females. Chastity of a woman is forced through customs of the times, and the different notions of gender are recognized as original creations.
“He got exceedingly angry (4),” “Shahzaman’s heart was on fire (4).” Here, an extreme expression of anger is devised to justify the killing habit of the king. This also is a description of the lesson that human rage paralyzes rationality. By rational anger, the king would just divorce or discard his wife, but he sacrifices all the other innocent women after killing his wife and related people. This is evidence that a woman is recognized as a member in the group, not as a noble character. “... never to marry a woman again (10),” “He then swore to marry for one night only and kill the woman the next morning (10).” Here, “never” and “swore” are the chief criminals to call misery and the entry of the heroine, Shahrazad.
The expressions of God, for God’s sake, by God, God’s blessing, and Alas are almost in every scene. God never appears directly. However, this shows the longing for God, the Creator, or the perfect existence part of human nature. Human beings are always looking for a dependable target. “By God, I am king and sovereign in Smarkand, yet my wife has betrayed me and has inflicted this on me (4).” Here, Shahzaman places his root in God. “When they looked again, they saw that it was a black demon (8),” There is always a good god and a bad god just like there are good men and bad men. We can see their dualism of religion in those days.
“But whenever he found himself alone and thought of his ordeal with his wife, he would sigh deeply, then stifle his grief, (4)” Here, “ordeal” means a painful or horrific experience; “the ordeal of having to give evidence,” unpleasant experience, painful experience, trial, tribulation, nightmare, trauma, hell (on earth), misery, trouble, difficulty, torture, torment, agony, and more "the hostages survived the ordeal.” Also, historically in ancient times, “ordeal” was a method of testing guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to severe pain such as burning from boiling water. So Trial by ordeal was a religious-judicial practice to determine “the will of God.” Here, betrayal by his wife is expressed as the same horrible pain to the two brothers.
“I am no longer alone in my misery; I am well (6).” “What happened to me is little by comparison ... everyone suffers (5).” Here, “comparison” is a meaningful word because it represents slyness of humans who take comfort from other’s tragedy.