The Thousand and One Nights

The Arabian Nights allows the reader to view the world from an Islamic perspective. One can understand the values that shape and mold their society, such as faith and wisdom. It would not be an exaggeration to state that the Islamic society is based around these traits and are seen as crucial for survival. These traits are a major factor on how males and females are portrayed in The Arabian Nights. Women may either be portrayed as a possession of the male or the male under the influence of the female or the male is portrayed as a gullible fool.

The first night's story in Arabian Nights is that of the Merchant and the Demon. Told by Shahrazad, the story offers a remarkable parallel to her own situation as she faces immanent death. Thus, the story of the Merchant and the Demon is told as a parable within the frame story, presenting a poignant analogy for Shahrazad's own situation. The Merchant and the Demon is a short tale but one filled with themes such as power, guilt, justice, and moral responsibility. Through the clever analogy with her own situation, Shahrazad also explores the theme of creative problem solving in tricky situations. Moreover, the story illustrates the core differences between pre-Islamic and Islamic values in Arabian society. Because the theme of gender roles and norms are not present within the Merchant and the Demon, the story shows how sexism is simply a form of general political and social oppression.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

When people hear of a King, they immediately envision someone who ought to be powerful, whom they can admire. They visualize someone who is knowledgeable and wise. People tend to assume that for a King to be successful, he needs to gain the respect of his kingdom and not be questioned whatsoever. No one ever imagines someone who can come and alter the King’s perspective for good. No one believes someone, a woman, can overpower a King by only using words. In The Thousand and One Nights, Shahrazad is shown to be more educated and wise, because of her knowledge she is able to change the King’s perception towards women.

Literature is the key to our world or language. Many writers have emerged from this subject such as Homer who wrote The Odyssey and Euripidies who wrote about the evil Medea. Also mentioned in this paper are the Thousand and One Arabian Nights which is a collection of folktales and stories that are compiled into one. Each of these works of literature has a woman character that has many similarities in solving their problems. In The Odyssey the woman character that will be in comparison is Penelope which is Odysseus’s wife. In the story of Medea, Medea is of course the character we will be discussing and Shaharazad is the woman character from the Thousand and One Arabian Nights that will also be in comparison. Each of these women find

This also affected much of the Abbasid dynasty and Islam. The Abbasid caliph Al-Musta'sim was

Ridouani states that the western representation of Muslims and Arabs is not a recent “fabrication”, but that it was deep-rooted into the West’s conceptualism since the first contact with the Muslims and the Arabs. (Ridouani). Ridouani seems to be very confident with this statement as he continues to tie the rest of the evidence he finds in it. The author talks about the Disney movie Aladdin, and how it began the 21st century stereotyped look that Arabs have. According to Ridouani, princess Jasmine’s original name is Badr Al Budur, however Disney has introduced her as Jasmine. Even if Disney innocently changed her name for easy pronunciation, what they failed to realize is that they have distorted the Arab identity in the western world. Once they changed her name, they also changed her identity; and so with that they also changed her appearance. Ridouani believes that the basis the media uses to actualize their targeted view of Arabs is to allocate them “in three B’s: ‘billionaire’, ‘bomber’, and ‘belly dancer”’ (Ridouani). Those three words have led to what we currently know as the

This book also runs into the issue of cultural appropriation at some times. These tales are told by many different writers, all being translated as well to fit various languages for more readers to enjoy and understand easily. The stories contain occasional misconceptions of the Middle East and is situated within western orientalism. However, the book also has racist portrayals of other groups of people, for example African American people. In the “King Shahryar and his Brother” story, there are two black people who are described with racist terminology. The book known as “The Arabian Nights” can be viewed more as a concept or a collection of stories instead of an entire book. The stories have created themes for future movies, television shows, and other representations. These themes could have most definitely affected the directors and producers in Hollywood in the 20th century, as they created many stereotypes to Arab and Muslim

It is interesting to see how works of anonymous origin, can have such an impact on the society in which it is created up to the present, while not being deemed as scholarly literature. The human condition of being emotionally, selfish beings is something that is not purely tied with that of serious literature. When scanning the realm of scholarly works The Thousand and One Nights makes an appearance, ironically. To have a such a source of knowledge from many different countries over a long period of time is a literature goldmine, which demands to be studied. There is a element of surprise when the author -or in this case authors- create more than just a descriptive narrative. Together they alluded to each-other, enhanced each other’s works, and created a world that seems to never end. One might simply think that to write a story-within-a-story is simply a device to make a narrative interesting. It is rather a way of teaching the characters and the audience how not to repeat history through an allegorical framework established in the prologue and through the extended anthropomorphism of in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey.

1001 nights has a very complex structure. Shahrazad is telling the story of the “Fisherman and the Demon” to King Shahrayar and her little sister, Dinazad. At the same time the fisherman tells the demon “The Tale of King Yunan and Sage Duban”. In that story King Yunan tells his vizier ”The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot”, in return the vizier tells King Yunan “The tale of the King’s Son and She-Ghoul”. This amount of layering effect of the stories makes King Shahrayar more interested and keeps Shahrazad and other girls alive.

Stories like Sindbad, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp and other popular stories are very common today in the western culture. Animated movies were also made for the entertainment of kids on these popular stories. One might wonder that where these stories originated and how it came down and made place in the western culture. Although these stories are very popular in both the western culture and the eastern culture but the original literary work is not so popular in common people. Theses stories are some of the stories from the Arabic work "The Thousand and One Nights." The work of "The Thousand and One Nights" represents basically a female that is a strong and clever idol and continuously imaginative and creative. It is an anonymous work

It is, in fact, a blend of Greek, Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Persian and Arab sources although scholars agree that the frame story, of Shahrazad saving herself from execution by King Shahriyar by recounting a series of entertaining stories and using cliffhangers each night, is likely of Indian origin. The tales of The Thousand and One Nights are rooted in oral traditions, and these tales were further popularized by various professional storytellers who would recite them in coffeehouses, the main forums for interactions between people, all over the Middle East. These tales contain three major strains: Indo-Persian stories that were later adapted into Arabic, stories composed in Baghdad, and stories composed in Egypt. It is said that the Arabian Nights actually originates from an old Persian book called Hazar Afsana, or A Thousand Legends, which was later translated into Arabic. The tales of Hazar Afsana were modified between the 10th and the 16th centuries, and they, in turn, gave us one of the most famous books in Classical Arabic Literature, The Thousand and One Nights. This unusual title was known in the 12th century, and it came to be not because there were a thousand and one stories, nor because Shahrazad continuously told stories for a thousand and one nights, but merely because “a thousand and one” is used to signify a large number close to infinity, and because in the Ancient East, time was counted in nights and not in days. Moreover, it is said that this title most likely originated from the Turkish expression “bin-bir” which means a thousand and one, and is often used to indicate a large number or an unimaginable amount of

“Aladdin” is a cultural production about a young man, Aladdin, who endures the malicious vizier, Jafar, while attempting to win the heart of Princess Jasmine. Consequently, I will discuss the orientalist portrayal, the source of knowledge, and the effects of American exceptionalism in “Aladdin”. This is done by reviewing the symbols in the film that represent the Middle East, which are depicted through Disney’s lens of intermingling of Arab and American values creating a postcolonial interpretation of the film. (Borthaiser)

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.

The intriguing tale of The Thousand and One Nights is considered a collection of stories written by various unknown authors over the centuries. The first known document bearing evidence of these tales was a single paper of very rare paper from Syria that dated back to 879 C.E. (“The Thousand and One Nights, 553). Throughout the centuries more was found about the tales and more was added to the work, including the Arabian title for the tales Alf Layla Wa-Layla or The Thousand and One Nights. Overall most people assume that the stories originated from the Arabian or Persian culture since the stories seem to be influenced by Middle Eastern qualities. In the paper “East Meets West” Bottigheimer points out how that the Thousand