The Arabian Nights Essay In the novel The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy, Sharazad is the main character who narrates fables to delay her death each night and potentially save her own life, but also to influence the king to be a better man and ruler over his kingdom. Throughout this novel readers will learn two moral lessons. First, they should not take things for granted, and once things are said you can’t always take them back. Upon reading the first story, “The Fisherman and the Demon,” readers may discover that they shouldn’t take things for granted because they can be taken away just as fast as they were given. The story begins with a man who has no money and fishes to provide food and money for his family. The story really …show more content…
The story begins with the king thinking him and his wife were madly in love then as the story goes he finds out that she is not as madly in love with him as he with her. While laying in bed one day the king overhears his maids gossiping about how his wife tricks him into drinking a sleeping potion every night so she can sneak away to see her lover. Overhearing such things the king had to take in account these accusations that his wife was cheating on him. That night the king dumps the potion out and pretends to sleep. When he finally sleeps, his wife dresses and goes to sneak away. He follows his wife as she sneaks away to her lovers dwelling late in the night. Upon seeing his wife having intercourse with another man he fills with rage and attempts to kill her lover, but only paralyzes him. The next morning she comes to the king lying saying all of her family has passed, she had cut her hair and was dressed in a mourning dress. The king allows his wife to do as she pleases even though he knows she is lying. After three years of constant mourning, the king had enough and one day out of anger admitted to being the one who paralyzed her lover. The wife was engulfed with rage when he told her, she sought revenge on her husband and got it immediately by casting a spell and turning him into half man and half stone. The kings situation in this story is
In fact, the main character is even aware of her change of character when it comes to being a writer. When recalling how her writer side would have attempted to understand the contradictory opinion of her editor Jonathan, Sharon states that “sometimes [she] think[s] the novelist is [her] better self, interested, understanding, wanting to know more” (277). (add explanation) Also, a comparison between Sharon and Scheherazade as storytellers can be made, demonstrating the importance of storytelling for both women. In the final part of Serial Monogamy, Hope expresses to the two daughters Sharon’s heritage: “if people ask where you came from, tell them your father was a prince of Persia and your mother a storyteller from Samarkand. And no one could ever really say which one seduced the other” (341). The fact that Hope was able to see Sharon as her best self shows how the storytelling characterized the writer so much that she became one with the Scheherazade from Arabian nights. Just like the famous storyteller, Sharon was able to grow with storytelling and made it part of her heritage. Through the telling of her own story, Sharon is able to accept her situation enough so that she can share her texts with her daughters without any bad intentions. At the very beginning of the book, Sharon emotionally expresses her final feelings toward Al and Hope for her daughters to read: “Please don’t think I wrote
Throughout life people encounter a numerous amount of obstacles, some of these obstacles can be tougher than others. These obstacles don’t define who you are, how the situation is handled does. In the book The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, Jessica encounters a tremendous obstacle that life could throw at her. Jessica has had to learn to adjust her life from the way that she used to live. Her life is changing and she has to decide if this accident defines who she is going to be while being surrounded by the love and comfort of her family.
In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by the author Khaled Hosseini presents the tragedy that Mariam went through. Mariam the unwanted child for her father because he was not married to Mariam’s mother when she get pregnant from him. She lived in a village with her only family member, her mother. One day she left her mother and went to the city that her father lived in. Her mother felt abandoned and committed suicide because Mariam is all she had. After the death of her mother, Mariam moved with her father to Kabul. She was a burden to her father so after some weeks she was forced to marry a forty-five year old man when she was only fifteen year old. She moved to another city with her husband where she had to live with a man that she never
In the book “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad wrote about the horrors that were committed by Leopold’s regime. As one of the first insider to witness these horrors, he wrote “Heart of Darkness”, with this book, he was able to spread the word about the atrocities he had seen in Leopold’s greedy pursuit of rubber and ivory in the congo. This book details closely how Leopold made his humongous profit. Leopold issued decrees on the Congo such as that the native people may only trade with his state agents or with his concessions. Leopold’s concessions were private companies that would sell the ivory and rubber, they would give Leopold 50% of their profits. The Abir Congo Company was one of these concessions that harvest the natural rubber of the Congo.They were granted a large portion of the land in the north and had the right to impose a rubber tax on its inhabitants. It was through concessions like these but also from his personal company (the Congo Free State) that Leopold created his personal wealth. This book brings us one step closer to answering our question since it tells us how Leopold got ahold of all of his profits. But this brings us to another question of, exactly how much money did the Congo bring to Leopold II?
Aladdin, a Disney Classic Movie, in my opinion, teaches kids and adults alike some of life’s most important lessons. First, Aladdin teaches that sometimes what we seem to want the most is not as we expect it to be. Next, the story of Aladdin also teaches that there are always people who think just to gain for themselves even if they seem to be our most trusted friends. Most importantly, Aladdin teaches us that one must not lie about or pretend being someone that they’re not just to impress. I have found that every Disney movie has something to teach and Aladdin, in between humor, action, and love, teaches these lessons in such a memorable way.
It has been such a joy reading “The Norton Introduction to Literature” by Kelly J. Mays. Of all the stories that I was assigned to read, one story in particular stood out to me because of how the author used words to create a vivid image in my mind. The story I’m talking about is “Araby” by James Joyce. James Joyce does a great job creating vivid images in the readers mind and creates a theme that most of us can relate. In this paper I will be discussing five scholarly peer reviewed journals that also discusses the use of image and theme that James Joyce created in his short story “Araby”. Before I start diving into discussing these five scholarly peer review journals, I would like to just write a little bit about “Araby” by James Joyce. James Joyce is an Irish writer, mostly known for modernist writing and his short story “Araby” is one of fifteen short stories from his first book that was published called “Dubliners”. Lastly, “Araby” is the third story in Dubliners. Now I will be transitioning to discussing the scholarly peer review journals.
focus for a sole work that I first put my eyes on, one I inherently
In the novel She and in the stories of The Arabian Nights, both Haggard and Haddawy explore the expanding gender roles of women within the nineteenth century. At a time that focused on the New Woman Question, traditional gender roles were shifted to produce greater rights and responsibilities for women. Both Ayesha, from Haggard’s novel She, and Shahrazad, from Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights, transgress the traditional roles of women as they are being portrayed as strong and educated females, unwilling to yield to men’s commands. While She (Ayesha) takes her power to the extreme (i.e. embodying the femme fatale), Shahrazad offers a counterpart to She (i.e. she is strong yet selfless and concerned with the welfare of others). Thus, from the two characters emerge the idea of a woman who does not abide by the constraints of nineteenth century gender roles and, instead, symbolizes the New Woman.
Upon meeting the King on his death bed, the physician decides to outwit Death by turning the King around so that Death was standing the King’s head instead of his feet and giving the King the special herb. While upset, Death warns the physician that he forgives him because the man is Death’s godson. Unfortunately, soon the King’s daughter falls upon her own death bed, the physician again se...
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 which is widely known in the Arab world. It is an Arabic collection of a thousand tales, which is derived from the Persian version, telling of a King who was in the habit of killing his wives after the first night, and who was led to abandon this practise by the cleverness of the Wezir's daughter, who nightly told him a tale which she left unfinished at dawn, so that his curiosity led him to spare her till the tale should be completed. Many people have written about these stories, that where they originated, what time period was it originated, how they have been changed, and also literary criticism of the work.
According to dictionary.com culture is: “The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that is both a result of an integral to the human capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. Culture thus consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, and works of art, rituals, ceremonies, and symbols.” Keeping this definition in mind it is quite easy to recognize the differences between Afghanistan culture and the culture of the United States. Additionally the amount of cultural stress that both main characters must have encountered when they relocated from Afghanistan to the United States. This essay will examine the cultural stress and differences that the character Baba went through with his relocation from Afghanistan to the United States.
In James Joyce’s Araby, a young boy finds himself in love with an older girl. The girl, Mangan’s sister, refuses to love him back and instead ignores him. This crushes the boy and makes his hunger for her even more stronger. He sometimes finds himself hopelessly alone in the darkness thinking about her, awaiting for the day she would recognize his devotion to her. “ At night in my bedroom…her image came between me and the page I strove to read (805).” “At last she spoke to me (805).” She asked him if he was going to attend a popular carnival called Araby. Unfortunately, she was unable to go, and it was up to him to bring her something back. This became his journey and adventure that he could not wait for. “I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days (805).” When he finally arrived at Araby he found himself, once again alone in the darkness, due to the fact that it was closing time. Nearly all the stalls were closed down already, except one. When he approached to the open stall to buy a special present for his loved one, he was by the saleswomen’s mean and annoyed tone of voice, when she asked him if he would like to buy anything. “She seem to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty (807).” His only response was a disappointed “No thank you (807).” He was obviously heartbroken and shocked that he was unable to accomplish his task, and make the love of his life love him the same way he loves her. This young boy is introduced to disappointment of disillusionment through the themes of isolation, dark and light images, and hopelessness an decay.
One day, the king and queen went on a trip to another kingdom when Caroline was eighteen. On their way to the kingdom their carriage was stopped. The king and queen heard screams and were frightened. Stefan stepped out and said “Stay here, I will come back. Use your magic if necessary.” Stefan looked around and saw blood splattered on the floor. As he turned around to go back to the queen, a figure appeared with veins around his face and sharp teeth, and bit the king on his neck until he sucked him dry of blood. Rebekah heard Stefan scream and ran out of the carriage. She saw her husband being killed and began chanting in Latin until the figure fell to the floor in pain. She ran to Stefan but it was too late, he was dead. The queen sobbed next to her husband, when she was suddenly grabbed by the neck and also sucked on until dry.
Whenever a piece of art arises there is always the question of authenticity. Is it really hundreds of years old? Or was it made one month ago by someone just trying to make a quick buck? This is the issue that Dominique Collon address in “The Queen Under Attack- A Rejoinder”. The piece that is the subject of this paper is The Queen of The Night, which is a plaque that depicts Ereshkigal. Ereshkigal is the Mesopotamian queen of the underworld, who in this case is shown nude with talons as feet, holding two “rod-ring” symbols, and wearing a horned headdress. The rod and ring are the ultimate symbols of justice, and it is said that Ereshkigal obtained these when her sister Ishtar came to visit her. Collon discusses how people such as Pauline Albenda doubt the authenticity of The Queen of the Night. He analyzes Albenda’s arguments and states evidence to support how she is wrong. Collon uses strong arguments with supporting detail as well as personal opinions to support his view on the
Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it. The next thing everyone saw was a gigantic tiger pounce on the poor man. The crowd gasped and the iron bells started to clang. The man was proclaimed guilty. He gave one last glance towards his lover. She had a look of sorrow on her face. As if she didn’t tell him which door to open. Then the whole crowd watched as he was torn to shreds. People in the crowd were screaming, others looked away, but the princess watched the whole time. A tear rolled down her cheek and she realized what she had just done. The king turned and looked at her and said “ I’m sorry this had to happen.” But it was too late, the decision was already made.