The Thousand and One Nights - Essay Example

The Thousand and One Nights The characterization of women throughout The Thousand and One Nights varies from story to story, night to night, but,as a whole, come together to mean one thing: women are not to be easily trusted. They are but tools that can be put down, picked up, or locked away for good, at the will of the man in charge of them. They are also considered to be powerful and persuasive, which only comes back to them not being able to be trusted. The story begins with King Sharayar and his chief vizier, Shahzaman. Both men, in a short amount of time from the other, have felt the pain and betrayal of their wives committing acts of infidelity. King Sharayar feels that, being in a position as great as the one he is in, as king, the incident should have not taken place at all. He begins to distrust women and decides to marry one each night, only to have them killed the morning to follow. He then swore to marry for one night only and kill the woman the next morning, in order to save himself from the wickedness and cunning of women, saying, "There is not a single chaste woman anywhere on the entire face of the earth." Instead of viewing women as individuals, King Sharayar opted to see them as a whole, therefore punishing them in the same way. In his eyes, none of the women of the world were true or faithful, and they could not be trusted. By his actions following the betrayal of his wife, women became disposable – toys that would please him for a few hours, only to end up dead by the next morning. Marriage and love no longer held the same values for him as they once had. As in many cultures, women were looked down on in the stories of The Thousand and One Nights. They were necessities, but for the needs of the men that claimed them. And yet, the women still possessed a power that even a man could not behold. Women still had a sense of personal freedom. They had a wild, bohemian nature about them that only showed when their men were unaware of it. Then he placed his head on the young womans lap, stretched his legs to the sea, sank into sleep, and began to snore. [...] Then she lay on her back, raised her legs, and said, "Make love to me and satisfy my need, or else I shall wake the demon, and he will kill you." The young woman, held by her demon husband in a glass chest, showed her true colors the moment her husband had fallen asleep. Behind his back, she betrayed him again, for the ninety-ninth and one-hundredth time, by sleeping with King Sharayar and Shahzaman. Her husband may think of her as being loyal, but she is as untamable and as wild as the sea that she and her husband came from. During this time period, while men might have not thought of their wives as being unintelligible, they did not think of them as wise and as sneaky. Women had an almost hidden intelligence, a knowledge and wisdom that did not show until they felt a need or use for it. Those times were usually times that did not benefit the husband, but tended to go against him. The husband, concluding that the parrot had lied about his wife and had accused her falsely, got angry, and he grabbed the parrot and, taking it out of the cage, smote it on the ground and killed it. But after the parrots death, the husband heard from his neighbors that the parrot had told the truth about his wife, and he was full of regret that he had been tricked by his wife to kill the parrot. His wife, not wanting to be caught with another man, went against her husband’s devious plans. It had not taken her long to figure out what her husband was doing, and was able to figure out a way around it. Unfortunately, her husband eventually understood what it was that took place, and gave the proper punishments. Women, throughout the numerous tales told in The Thousand and One Nights, showed varying levels of wisdom and deceit. While their men considered them to be untrustworthy and sneaky, the women could be seen as wise and clever. The women in the many tales have thought up many plans to go against the rules and laws that their men have formed for them. Shahrazad is the greatest example of all of the characteristics of women seen throughout the text. With the knowledge that King Sharayar was going to marry each night and then kill his wife the next morning, Shahrazad took it upon herself to put an end to it. Each night, for one thousand and one nights, she lay with King Sharayar and she would tell him a story, but she would not finish it. Her sister aided her in keeping up the storytelling, enabling many women to be able to keep their lives. Although the women kept their proper front around their men, they were quick to turn to their true selves when it best fit them. In most cases, the women were eventually caught in their act of deception, but the fact still remains that they had been able to cross their men to begin with. The women in One Thousand and One Nights were betraying, untrustworthy, sneaky, and, in the eyes of the men, unworthy, but their ways and ideas made them wise and intelligent. Their cunningness set them apart from the women that their husbands and society expected them to be. Read More