The Thousand And One Nights And The Decameron

In Khaled Hosseini 's A Thousand Splendid Suns, Henrik Isben 's A Doll 's House, and Kamala Markandaya 's Nectar in a Sieve, women face obstacles that disempower and silence them due to Men 's treatment of women, the societal view of women, and the objectification of women. Within the literary works analyzed this semester, disempowerment is a persisting theme that roots from the various obstacles and hardships women encounter. The woman 's ability to overcome this disempowerment is particularly challenging due to being oppressed by their peers, specifically men. Women countlessly serve as victims of verbal and physical abuse under their husbands, thus contributing to the idea of female inferiority. There are various stereotypical roles challenged between men and women in society leading to discrimination of women. The preconceived notions of women 's roles in society arise from those within society. During this time era, most of society depicts women as uneducated, essentially lacking economical and social opportunities, making the female population highly vulnerable to all types of exploitation. Nonetheless, men in these literary works display objectifying and degrading attitudes towards those of the female gender. The objectification of women notably dehumanizes the female population. Within these literary works, the authors exemplify this reality of obstacles that disempower and silence women. Though these women fight for their liberation and equality, they are victims of

From a plethora of many authors and compilations over many centuries comes the fourteenth century The Thousand and One Nights, a Middle Eastern frame story during which there are as many as four implanted stories. In the outermost frame of this tale, a king who is betray by his wife vows to take a new wife each night and kill her the next morning in order to prevent further unfaithfulness. The main inner frame are stories from one of his wives which she continues each night to keep the king interested and thus postpone her death. Through these stories, the reader can examine the role of men and women in this time, specifically how women function in conjunction to men in the text. The reader may assume the men are superior while the woman are inferior, but through close reading of the text, the reader will discover that women in the text are only treated subordinately by men in the story but are revealed to the reader as the more powerful of the sexes. Authors reveal the power of women by their prowess at trickery or “women’s cunning” (The Thousand 1181), and their ability to force the actions of male counterparts. The reader can examine men’s attempt to stifle this power, which further acknowledges the women’s merit, through the excessively frequent occurring instances of men treating the women as insignificant, as well as instances when women are turned to ungulate animals, such

In The Thousand and One Nights translated by Husain Haddawy, there is an emphasis on the role women play in and how their characters affect the male view on the rights and freedom women are entitled to. The value of women in the tale vanished after King Shahzaman’s wife had committed adultery with one of his palace workers. In the East during the time of this tale, there was little to no value for women, which gave men the power to use them as sex slaves and be able to throw them away after they have been sexually fulfilled. One day, when the vizier’s daughter Shahrazad volunteers to calm the raging king by telling him many tales and distracting him from his sexual acts and killing spree. The tale of The Thousand and One Nights was believed to be misogynistic, and presented women to be adulteresses who caused the downfall of men (Blythe). This tale was written in ancient Middle-Eastern civilization where women did not have rights or freedom within their societies and were victimized to be seen as the root of all evil and that “women are not to be trusted” (609. Haddawy). This tale will be evaluated based on the traditions placed in the ancient Middle-East, the modern-day observations of how women are treated in westernized countries, and the changes perceived.

No matter what a woman did or thought, she was still seen as the lesser of the sexes.

‘Taming of the Shrew’ & ‘10 Things I hate about you’ shows the difference between how both genders are treated, males been shown as more important than the female sex. This belief is still carried out through our generation, men being portrayed as more legible to earn higher wages and given more respect in the workforce.

Since society has existed, women have been known as different from men. For the longest time, women have been known as the “weaker sex” when compared to the male. There purpose, especially in the olden days is to obey and please the men. However nowadays there seems to be a more equality between the two genders. But even today discrimination between male and female takes place all over the world. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can see a lot of discrimination between the two sexes. The story takes place in the 1930’s and it has a bad view on women, they just got the right to vote for presidents, mayors, and senators. However most men thought that the women should only stay home and raise children, that they should not be involved in politics, and their ideas were not valuable. Women were treated as “house slaves” at times when all what they did all day, every day, was work around the house trying to improve the living for their husband and kids.

During the time that The Thousand and One Nights was written, polygamy, a man having multiple wives at the same time, was a very common practice for men. According to “Connor Prairie Interactive History Park,” despite this being such a common practice, women did not always agree with the practice of polygamy and often had horrible disputes with other wives. Because of these sometimes unruly disputes, women were thought of as sinful and promiscuous (Hartman). King Shahryar in The Thousand and One Nights upheld the standard role of men during that time, but Shahrazad rejected the cultural standard placed on her by practically forcing the king to live a monogamous lifestyle.

Gender inequality will always affect the portrayal of women in society, the weaker, unnecessary, and other sex. It is not just a subject of the past, and still holds a name in society. However in the olden eras, the way women were treated and looked at was in a much harsher condition. In Shakespeare’s Othello and Shelley’s Frankenstein, women’s roles in the books are solely based on the way they are treated in their time period. The portrayal of women in these books demonstrate that they can never be in the same standing as men and therefore will never have the same respect as them. In both Othello and Frankenstein women are treated as property, used to better men’s social standards, and lack a voice, which demonstrates that in

All throughout history, women have been thought of to be “weaker” and “not as capable” as men have always been thought to be. Due to this, gender roles were

In the story “Jury of her Peers,” the women are thought of as inferior. The men treat the women like they are not able to do the same things as the men. “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 266) The women have “feminine intuition.” They know the pain from isolation that Minnie was going through and know what clues to look for. “Again, for one brief moment, the two women’s eyes found one another.” (Glaspell 280) The men underestimate that the women can think on this level.

In the modern world women work, vote, run for office and the list goes on. In most aspects, women are equal to men. However, this was not always the case. In centuries past, women were not viewed as being equal to men socially, intellectually, or politically and were thought incapable of accomplishing anything of value. Consequently, many cultures held the view that women were possessions whose only purpose was to be subservient to men. The view of women as mere objects is evident in various works of literature throughout the ages. Two classic works of literature that exemplify this are The Thousand and One Nights and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of

In traditional society, woman’s role is to take care of kids, do laundries, etc. While men are supposed to go to work and feed the family. It shows that women are treated unequally. Also, throughout history women are also treated unequally. Such as men can have multiple wives and women are treated like slaves. Men can do whatever they want to their wife, including

In the story The Thousand and One Knights, women were not valued. Some of the stories portrays women as been over driven sex objects, who were eager to pleasure and satisfy the sexual need of men; whether they were kings, wealthy, or poor. After the kings (Shahrayar and Shahzaman) found out their wives were cheating on them they began viewing all women as been unfaithful and deceitful. They thought women were predestined to be sex objects and there was nothing or no one that could prevent such destiny. Therefore, they began treating women like animals; they would pleasure themselves with them at night, and then have them slaughtered in the morning.

King Lear and A Thousand Acres discuss the role and status of women similarly. In King Lear women were considered lower status than their male counterparts. This is true even of women who would today be considered equal to men, such as a man and a women who went to college and acquired the same

On my 7th birthday, my least favorite uncle gave me a book titled Alibaba and the Forty Thieves. I was surprised because he is my least favorite uncle for a reason, he doesn’t just surprise you with a gift for no reason at all. Little did I know, he just succeeded in getting me to do exactly what I said I wasn’t going to do all summer long, READ ANYTHING! He knows how much I love the Arabian night’s stories and he used this knowledge to get me to change my initial decision of not reading any book during the summer. So failure to recognize the strength in others makes us blind to our own weaknesses. In the One Thousand and One Nights text, some of its characters experience changes due to the fact that they failed to recognize the strength and abilities or capabilities of other opposing characters.