As you read these stories, keep
a record in outline form of how one relates to the next. By what kind of link
do we progress from one story level to another, with the first level being
the book, The Arabian Nights, and the second, the story of Shahrayar,
Shahzaman, the vizier and Shahrazad, and so on? See if you can outline the
various levels of the narrative--and bring the outline to class.
Why did the anonymous author
write down the tales we have here? In what sense is his book religiously motivated?
How do his motivations for writing compare with Homer's?
Shahrayar and Shahzaman are brothers.
What differences are there between them? What do they have in common?
What is a vizier? From today's
reading, describe the kind of position and duties a vizier is likely to have.
As you read, you should make
note of gender and racial biases in the text. How does it compare to the other
texts we've read in this respect?
How do Shahrayar and Shahzaman
"prove" to themselves that women are by nature faithless? Is there any other
way to interpret the episode with the young woman and the demon?
What do you think of Shahrayar's
"solution" to the problem of a wife's potential unfaithfulness? What does
it suggest to see human beings as interchangeable in this way?
What does the Ox learn from the
Donkey? What does the Donkey learn? How does this apply to Shahrazad?
What's the proper relationship
between husband and wife, according to Sharazad's father? Does he practice
what he preaches?
What's unusual about Shahrayar
and Shahrazad's wedding night?
As in many of these stories,
the disaster that falls on the merchant in "The Merchant and the Demon" is
due more to chance than to a moral flaw (other than littering) on his part.
What related hypotheses about the culture could we begin testing at this point?
Which is more important to King
Shahrayar, the woman or the stories? Support your position with evidence from
the text.
Even demons respond to stories,
it seems. What does the Demon have in common with Shahrayar? Is Shahrazad
being very clever in her storytelling? Is there a double meaning here?
What do both the first and second
old men's stories suggest about family relationships?
What common moral ground might
the second old man find with the Christian New Testament teachings? What about
his story doesn't fit there?
"The Story of the Fisherman and
the Demon" starts a new story cycle, about a fisherman so unlucky that he
almost catches his death trying to earn a living. In his four casts of the
net, what does he catch?
What logic did the demon use
in deciding to kill his rescuer? How does the fisherman use his reason to
overcome the demon?
Why does the fisherman tell the
tale of Yunan and Duban to the demon? What moral lesson does it teach?
What piece of advice from The
Prince might have been useful to King Yunan when dealing with his vizier?
Yunan tells his vizier "The Tale
of the Husband and the Parrot"; what did he fail to learn from his own tale?
The vizier tells "The Tale of
the King's Son and the She-Ghoul." How does it help him persuade the King
to execute Duban?
At what point does storytelling
lose its appeal for the Sage Duban? How does he make his point instead?
What's the lesson for the demon?
How does he respond? What's double-edged about his gift to the fisherman?
Notice how things often come
in threes in fairy tales. What happens to the three deliveries of rainbow
fish?
What does the King find when
he enters the palace in the land of the rainbow fishes? What has the young
man's wife stolen from him by placing him under enchantment?
How does the King trick the young
man's wife?
Who are the fish? What does this
story suggest about religious tolerance in this culture? Is this unusual in
ancient cultures?
Who is rewarded at the end of
this tale? How? What's the moral of the story of the fisherman and the demon?
What evidence do we have so far
that stories are not just entertainments, but serious attempts to manipulate
reality?
