5-21) The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey (pp. She marries King Shahryar, who has vowed that he will execute a new bride every day. He continues this horrific process for quite a while. Here, Shahrazad defies the typical familial gender norms where the father typically has the last word with regard to his daughter. Against her father's advice and warnings, she marries Shahrayar, and orders her little sister, Dinarzad, to find her on her wedding night and ask her to tell a story. In The Thousand and One Nights …vizier, however, has two daughters, Shahrazad (Scheherazade) and Dunyazad; and the elder, Shahrazad, having devised a scheme to save herself and others, insists that her father give her in marriage to the king. (this woman) Shahrazad was a beautiful and wise woman. Here, women are presented as almost entirely without control - both of the men's wives are found in bed with servants. All rights reserved. Stories might not be able to change the world, but they are capable of changing us by making us look at ourselves in new ways. Finally, her selflessness cannot be disputed; it is doubtful that the king would have gone after his vizier's daughter himself, meaning she is willing to risk her life voluntarily for the sake of women throughout the realm. What are their motivations for telling stories? In Sir Richard Burton's translation of this collection, she is described as having collected a thousand history books about antique races and departed rulers, and having studied and learned many poems by heart. GradeSaver, 9 June 2014 Web. I'm a bit rough in my economics, but I'll make a stab at this.Second thought, I won't. She was also a very disloyal woman. “The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter,” “The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey,” and “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife,” pp. The wisdom of the decision must be evaluated based on the amount and kind of knowledge the decision-maker had at his disposal. Conclusion: A rational decision maximizes the decision maker’s benefit, considering beliefs held and what knowledge was available at the time. While different collections of The Arabian Nights feature not only different stories but even different versions of the same stories, the frame story tends to be pretty consistent amongst them, particularly the device of Scheherazade's scheme. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Maybe the custom would incite the people to rebellion, or risk him being assassinated in the night. The stories willfully embrace spectacle and the supernatural, largely because that makes them more engaging. Shahrazad, the daughter of the King’s vizier is brave enough to marry the king, which turns out to be a brilliant idea. Maybe he was too distraught to think clearly about the long-term consequences. Even in this relatively straightforward (and kind of tense) story, there is an aside with a demon who emerges from the ocean. So every day he would marry a new virgin, and the following morning he would send her to be beheaded. So again, the stories are not meant to be viewed through a political lens but rather than a humanist ones. "The Story of the Merchant and the Demon" and "The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies" hint at the vast network of morals, lessons, hints, and layers that Shahrazad has created for Shahrayar. (That a happy ending is implied in Shahrayar's change of heart should not be read as a victory for woman's social or political rights.) The story begins with the king brothers, Shahrayar and Shahzaman, discovering the unfaithfulness and lewd behavior of their wives and concubines. It took centuries to collect all of these together, and various... GradeSaver has a complete study guide, which includes a detailed summary and analysis readily available for your use. Happily realizing that the demon's misfortune is clearly worse than their own, the two brothers return to their kingdoms. He loved his Sultana more than his own life. But before he can dismiss his wife and force her into the afterlife, she concocts a clever plan. (Note that the men sleep with the demon's woman with hardly a second thought.) The vizier refuses, knowing the king will force him to kill his own daughter. They are not quite portrayed as such, which sets the tone for the rest of the collection, which forgoes melodramatic representations in favor of more grounded and contradictory depictions of humanity. Indeed, this had already begun. The Arabian Nights: One Thousand and One Nights essays are academic essays for citation. Simple theme. Was the king’s behavior irrational? According to the frame tale, Shahryar (Persian: شهريار or "king"), the king, was betrayed by his first wife, which caused him to go mad and believe that all women would betray him. But after some years Sultan Shahriar came to know that his wife had been unfaithful to him. Eventually, his vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, decides on a scheme Her fierce individuality, singular cleverness, and apparent charisma make her into a champion for women, who transgresses without effectively altering the attitudes of her society. Economists define rational behavior in terms of analyzing costs and benefits. Each evening she tells a story, leaving it incomplete and promising to finish it the following night.… Women are not to be trusted” (The Thousand and One Nights 557). King Shahzaman sees his wife committing adultery. The scheme works immediately, and continues for, as the title says, one thousand and one nights, until the king's mind is finally changed and he accepts Scheherazade as his permanent wife. Shahrazad embarks on a quest to save her own life as well as the life of the kingdom’s young women by telling her new husband a series of stories over the course of a thousand and one nights. "And I will answer for the rest of the company that they are equally pleased, but I wish you to tell me what it was that you said just now in the street." 5-How is Shahrazad described in the story? Stories can only produce a greater effect if they are worth listening to; this is another implicit argument made through the use of the frame story. Incomplete and imperfect knowledge about future costs will affect the decision maker’s ability to make certain choices. Very simply put, the frame story itself is one of a king, King Shahrayar, who has been betrayed by his wife, and who is off commiserating with his brother, King Shahzaman, who had suffered a similar fate himself. Further, their lack of political power is clear, since the law not only allows but practically mandates their deaths for such betrayal. Shahzaman is only consoled when he realizes that his brother has it much worse than him, and the two brothers in turn are only truly happy once they locate a man who is more unfortunate than even the two of them. What is the background story behind the Tale of “A Thousand and One Night”? Copyright © 1999 - 2021 GradeSaver LLC. What we have in our story is a king deciding how to best live out the rest of his life within a belief system that says God has ordained women to cheat. King Shahrayar is an avid listener of stories. As he was a just king like his own father, he followed the just way. Both brothers come off as more naive, greedy, and selfish than particularly cruel or diabolical. In fact, Scheherazade only succeeds because the stories are compelling. “the vizier, who put, the girls to death, had an older daughter called Shahrazad and a younger one called Dinarzad.”, Primary storyteller of a thousand and one nights. she wants to convince the king to forgive women. Fortunately, his latest bride, Shahrazad, is a master teller of stories. These attitudes are certainly indicative of the culture in which the stories were collected, and applying a contemporary perspective to them is only of limited use. How would the king handle a demographic crisis that would weaken his kingdom? Shahrayar might have considered these costs and valued the personal benefits more. If an individual stands to benefit from a certain decision, then it’s in his own best interest to make that particular choice. The king did predict, after hearing his brother’s misfortune, “I would have gone mad.” However, from an economic perspective, is this true? When the latter returns to his palace, he finds his wife in bed with the cook, and murders them both before leaving to visit his brother. 18-20) The Story of the Merchant and the Demon (pp. The lesson is to always be honest and be faithful. The frame story of The Arabian Nights is one of its most intriguing aspects; it has set the stage for numerous frame stories in literature, television, and film. The King is amazed as he has made an exception for the Wazir’s daughter. Unfortunately, one of King Yunan's many viziers is an ugly, greedy and jealous man. 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. Theme pack from WPMUDEV by Incsub. And most upsetting of all, Shahrayar is free to murder one woman each night without any fear of reprisal. A common example is Frankenstein. First, they would weaken his mind with magic. On the night before she was to be What sort of situations occur that lead to telling stories? For there must be sorcery at work in Shahrazad’s stories. Gundersen, Kathryn. Shahrazad is the daughter of King Shahrayar's vizier, the main character in the collection's frame story, and the narrator of most of the following stories. That is, if the stories are not engaging enough, then Scheherazade will lose her life, as will many women after her. Their quest is an expression of an exaggerated shame and pride, thereby establishing the collection's interest in probing the nature of mankind through intense situations. From a psychological perspective, we might say this idea was insane. What about the costs of such tyrannical behavior? For three years, he marries women only to kill them the next morning. Generalizing this to all women, Shahrayar decides to never remarry, instead instituting a custom of sleeping with a new woman every night and having her put to … Eventually, his vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, decides on a scheme to end what she considers a barbaric practice. Beyond this functional purpose, however, the scene of the wife’s adultery is meant to support a recurring theme throughout the rest of the stories: women cannot be trusted. Prologue – The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter – Part I. The vizier’s daughter Shahrazad will try her best to dissuade him from blaming all girls for a few lapses in honesty from King Shahrayar and his brother. However, it is important to note that Scheherazade finds a way to express her rights, and protect other women, without effectively changing her society. The Arabian Nights, also called One Thousand and One Nights, is a collection of stories and folk tales from West and South Asia that was compiled during the Islamic Golden Age. He continues this horrific process for quite a while. Shahrazad instructs her sister to ask for a story when she is with the King. It’s in Shahzaman’s best interest to find a solution that allows him sexual gratification yet spares him the grief and embarrassment of an unfaithful wife.

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