For Friday: Tales from the Thousand and One Nights: Prologue and
The Hunchback’s Tale (pp.15-76)
Answer TWO of the following...
1. What might be the benefit of telling a story using a frame
narrative (that is, a basic story that has several stories within it)? How might this allow the author(s) to show
us more about this society than any one story could? Also, how does it change how we interpret each story when we
remember that the King’s doomed wife, Shahrazad, is really telling all the
stories?
2. What do you feel is the purpose of the Barber telling the stories
of his Six Brothers? While some stories
are quite comic, others are tragic and even disturbing in their bad luck and
cruelty. How might these stories
reflect the Barber’s view of the world, and do you feel he’s telling them all
to make a point—or is it merely an example of his inability to shut up?
3. In the Prologue, we are introduced to the favorite theme of the
Ancient/Medieval world: faithless women.
How is this theme developed in “The Hunchback’s Tale”? If these stories reflect the medieval
Islamic view, how do they view/depict women in their culture? Is it much different from what we
encountered in Sappho and The Iliad?
Do they have more freedom?
Less? Are the ideas more
modern? Less?
4. Even though The Tales of the Thousand and One Nights is from
the Islamic world, how much do you feel it reflects a Muslim outlook? In other words, is it a text that seems
concerned with advocating a strict Muslim view of the world? Or is the presence of Islam just another frame
to contain numerous views, ideas, and stories?
Discuss a specific story or detail to support your answers.
Andrew Reeves
ReplyDelete1. The benefit of telling a story using a frame narrative is that it allows Shahrazad to seamlessly transition from one story to another. This allows the author(s) to show a general representation of how society in that time period worked. It doesn't really change how we interpret each story because we always keep in mind that Shahrazad is telling all of these stories to buy herself more time to live, and hopefully live long enough to end the Kings' killing spree. All in all this is a very useful tool for Shahrazad that allows her to keep adding stories in layers, one after another to keep buying herself more time.
3. In the Prologue, we are introduced to the theme of faithless women. In this culture it is a common belief that women are conniving and have a negative association due to society giving them such a harsh life that they are forced to fight back in any manner they can. This theme is developed in the Hunchback's Tale because if the tailor had just ignored his wife and owned up to what happened people may have just seen it as the accident it was and gotten leniency, but instead he listened to the 'conniving' woman, and thus things turn nasty and a web of lies begins to unravel, causing unnecessary grief. These stories reflect the medieval Islamic view of how women are viewed in a very derogative manner. They are viewed as conniving, evil witches that tempt good men and force them to do bad things. It is a slightly different culture than what we encountered in Sappho and The Iliad, the other cultures believed that women should be seen and not heard, but they didn't believe that women were evil. They didn't think they were worth much, but they didn't feel that women were as bad as the medieval Islamic culture did. Women seemed to have a little more freedom in Sappho and The Iliad. They could still go out and make friends, and do some tasks, while in Islamic cultures they were little more than slaves. The ideas of Sappho and The Iliad seemed more modern than Islamic culture because our culture has strikingly contrasting values. This causes our culture to think negatively of Islamic culture and to be severely offended by it.
1) I love how the stories are written into stories. It show people that there are two sides to every story. People view things different ways. We can see different kinds of people and how they lived and acted instead of just a general type of society. Shahrazad is switching stories to try and buy time so that she doesn't get killed. Maybe if she shows him that all people aren't evil in the world that he wont kill her.
ReplyDelete2) The Barber is showing that there isn't just one type of people. Every individual is unique. There is goods times in people lives and bad times. You need to remember both of the times because you can grow from that and become a better person for the experiences that they go through.
1 By using the frame narrative in the story it weaves the event of each story in a flowing way. The story gives the view of society from all ages, class and other distinctions. This story gives a more overall picture of the criticism of many social levels and we get a picture of how those levels interpret life and status.
ReplyDelete2 I feel that the stories of the Barbers six brothers showed how it would be hard to trust anyone, it seems that as story progresses, the brother was deceived in some way or another. Those in power or influence and well as those of lesser state, all were involved in the deception. I feel it showed the purpose showed the Barber a cynic.
1. The benefit of using a frame narrative would allow the speaker to use characters within other characters to display different perspectives. This allows the author(s) to show more about this society than any one story could, because as the stories go on it shows a general description of how each level of society works and feels. When we remember that Shahrazad is really telling the stories, it changes how we interpret each story because she is a woman, and at that time women were lower than even the lower class people.
ReplyDelete2. The purpose of the Barber telling the stories of his Six Brothers is to show that the lower class believes that the injustices in the world will happen continuously happen to them. He makes it seem like this is the framework of all the lower class citizens, and he is telling the king such long stories to make a point that not all is well in the kingdom like upper class people believe it is.
1.) The benefit of using a frame narrative when telling stores would be to extend the purposes of the story. I think that the connecting stores can help show the true meaning behind a story. The author can show how a bunch of other people experience problems within the society and the how the other classes experience the same problems; and how they handle them. Shahrazad telling the story turns the story from “All women are awful and sluts, let’s kill them “ into “All women are smart and cunning and men are afraid of them”.
ReplyDelete2.) He was trying to “bug” the king and drive him crazy. I think he was telling these stories to show the king not everything in his kingdom was fine and dandy, and maybe because everything story was about temptation…so perhaps the bartender was warning the king to stay away from temptation and if he follows temptation then to try and do his best to make good decision.
1.) The benefit of telling a frame narrative is, it usually takes longer, and it give you a perspective of many different people rather than just one person. Showing us the insight of more than one person allows us into the society of many different people and it shows their view on things and how everybody is different and one person is not the same. When we remember that the wife is doomed at the end of the story we sort of root for the story to be longer, because she should not die because a king thinks he "can't" trust her. It makes us hope that the king keeps interest in the story so she doesn't have to die.
ReplyDelete4.) The Tales from a Thousand and One Nights makes us think of the Muslim outlook just like we would any other religion. They do not force they're religion on us in the book like many of them do today. I believe the presence of Islam is just another frame and I think the book is advocating unity. It's like if all the religions could be united then eventually the upper and lower classes could be united. It really makes us look at today's Muslim religion and wonder how they lost their way. Or, if the book is trying to portray a what if situation, like what if all the religions were united and stood up for each other. We don't know what struggles they dealt with back then when it came to religion or the severity of their culture.
Right, each story goes back to the main story, and gives us another way to look at and/or appreciate it. Every hero is, in a way, Shahrazad, so we have to read it on two levels: the ideas presented in the story, and the ideas she would insert into the story for the king's benefit. And not surprisingly, there is often a theme of cruelty and unfairness to the lower classes, and the essential unity of all people under God. Good lessons for a king!
DeleteMargaret Mitchell
ReplyDelete1. The benefit of telling a story with many stories inside it, is because we get different aspects of people and the things around them. This shows us more about society because we get many different stories of how things worked and how throughout social order they worked as well. Therefore, it shows us so much more about society than most things because of that. We interpret it differently knowing that a woman was telling these stories because back then most of the stories were written by men and in the men’s perspective. We get to see into what the woman was feeling and how see seen all of the things that were going on around her.
2. I believe the purpose of the Barber telling his stories of his six brother was to get his point across. It may have been repetitive, but maybe that’s what we need right? Repetition in order for it to stick with us. He simply wanted us to realize what he was getting at. Foolish people usually have bad things happen to them. Therefore, don’t be foolish and don’t learn the hard way. Even though it may have been funny and not so funny and it may have seemed like he simply wouldn’t shut up, but he made clearer his point and beyond the surface there was a real message.
Great responses--the frame format gives us every class, race, religion, and sex all in one story. This would be impossible to do any other way, and it's also a very natural way to tell a story; most of the stories we tell are stories about other people who also tell stories, etc.
DeleteKyle Straughn
ReplyDelete2. I really take the barber at face value. I think he is an incurable braggart and busy-body who happens to be able to back up many of his claims. That doesn't change the fact that he clearly can't shut up. If he spoke about his brother it's because he loves to hear his own voice, He needs no deeper reason.
4. The Muslim outlook is well represented at least in the sense that the author are clearly Muslim who are writing about things happening Muslim societies. The language alone attests to this, with the constant references to Allah and the like. That said I think that the very term “Muslim society” is misleading because that covers such a huge number of different cultures with different beliefs. Is alcohol acceptable, is music, how are women to dress? Most of the Muslim world doesn't follow the strictest Muslim outlook. The story is pretty even handed when it comes to the portrayal of non-Muslims, at least in the Hunchbacks tale. The characters such as the Jewish doctor and the drunken Christian are rather obvious caricatures with the intoxication and glee over the one silver. But they are still treated with as much (or as little) dignity as the other characters.
Ha, he doesn't need a deeper reason, does he? And as you suggest, it's a story of stereotypes--no one emerges as very good, but no one emerges as very bad, either. It's the way people talk of each other, a little racist, but also, deep down, with a shared dignity. No one is a villain here.
ReplyDelete