The role of destiny in The Thousand and One Nights In the Muslim community, destiny is considered part of the important moral standard of obeying and submitting to God. Consequently, the idea of predestination is a recurring theme in The Thousand and One Nights. These stories, including Aladdin’s Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Three Apples, all share similar concepts of the power of fate and predestination. In each story, the main characters are given several opportunities to change their fates. However, in order for the characters to succeed, they must take advantage of their situations. In The Thousand and One Nights, even though destiny partially accounts for the fates of the characters, it is also important that the …show more content…
characters themselves help determine those fates. In Aladdin’s Lamp, Aladdin is fortunate because of the genie in the lamp, which he only gained through fate.
It could have been anyone who got the lamp, but Aladdin was just the lucky one. The genie’s power allows him to become rich, travel great distances, and eventually marry the princess. It gives him the ability to change his own fate. However, none of this could have been possible without his own wit and determination. First of all, when Aladdin finds the lamp, he refuses to hand it over to the magician. It was his choice alone whether or not to give him the lamp, however he took advantage of the opportunity that he was given. He later outsmarts the magician and takes back the princess and the lamp. In both situations, Aladdin is able to use the genie’s power to choose his own …show more content…
fate. Another character who is given the power to change his fate is Ali Baba, who only discovers the thieves and their gold because he was in the right place at the right time. Fate gives him the opportunity to change his current life and become rich, similarly to Aladdin. He takes the opportunity and sneaks as much gold from the thieves’ hiding spot as he can. However, because of his greed, it causes him to endanger his family. Luckily for Ali Baba, Morgiana is able to save him on multiple occasions. Just like how Aladdin relied on the genie’s power for help, Morgiana is able to help Ali Baba. Whenever she finds him in a bad situation, she is able to change his fate. Similarly to Aladdin’s Lamp and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, the story of The Three Apples shows how luck can quickly change a person’s fate.
If Ja’far failed to find the suspect, he would be executed. However, his actions could not save him in this case. Only out of sheer luck was Ja’far able to locate the murderer. First, the two suspects, the husband and the father, show up just before his execution. Second, he miraculously finds the apple in his daughter’s pocket, and finds out that the lying slave is actually his own. In order to save his slave’s life, he tells a story to the caliph. Similarly to how Shahrazad tells stories to Shahrayar to save her own life, as well as the lives of other women. This shows how stories can change the fates of not just one person, but others as
well. Destiny overall plays an important role in The Thousand and One Nights. It teaches us that anyone can become fortunate, even those that are normally unfortunate. A person’s fate can change based on his or her own luck. This teaching is not just popular in Muslim society, but all over the world. Everyone wants to believe that they can become rich one day, just like the characters in these stories. Of course, luck is not the only thing that decides a person’s fate. Everyone has the power to change his or her own destiny. He or she must have the willpower and determination to be able to change it. When Shahrazad chooses to marry Shahrayar, she is taking a big risk. However, in order to save her life, as well as the lives of countless other women, she is taking fate into her own hands. A person’s future depends on both luck and that person’s choices. Knowing this, it gives people hope that their situations might change- it motivates them to work hard, so that it is possible that one day, they will. In the end, The Thousand and One Nights teaches us that we should look for new opportunities that fate gives us, as well as take advantage of them. All three stories, Aladdin’s Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and The Three Apples, have one thing in common: when the characters were given the opportunity to change their fates, they made the choice to do so. Similarly, we must all make the most of the opportunities in our own lives, in hopes that one day we will be able to take fate into our own hands.
In this section the importance of destiny is again reminded to us. In this story the idea of God chooses your destiny and some of us become kings and some become slaves. It doesn’t matter what you do because you can’t change your destiny God has picked out for you.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
The concept of choice is one that humans have abused time and time again. While free will may seem like a positive, the storyteller often portrays what can go wrong when humans are making the decisions. The way in which these choices are made can happen in a variety of manners, but the fundamentals of free will are very similar from story to story. In “The Chameleon is Late” and “The Two Bundles”, free will results in death remaining on earth, but the decisions that led to this outcome were made in unique ways.
Many believe that our choices in life are already made for us and we have no control to what happens to us, although others believe that this life is like an epic journey and we can change our fate at any moment. It´s hard to choose which side you believe in my honest opinion I believe that our lives do not ¨lie in the fate of God¨ as stated by in the Iraq War Post by Faiza Al-Araji however I believe instead that our life is an odyssey, that we must travel through and make important choices by ourselves not by fate. But with many edvidence and claims in both story the question ¨How much in our lives do we actually controls?¨ wanders through our mind.
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
Throughout the hundreds of years, individuals have pondered the impact of heavenly or insidious force, environment, hereditary qualities, even excitement, as deciding how free any individual is in settling on good decisions. Fate, a result of the past, is often described as the advancement of occasions out of man 's control, dictated by an extraordinary force. In any case that someone may utilize their freewill can reflect upon their outcomes, decided upon a supreme force, whether they are positive or negative. In the novels “A Lesson Before Dying,” Ernest Gaines and “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck, the authors explore the trials and tribulations of self influenced fate controlled by an higher force.
...that fate. Events that lead to other events will eventually lead one to their fate. “Oedipus the King” is a great play that sets an example of what fate is. Oedipus chooses to flee from home, in attempt to avoid the god’s statement of his fate from coming true. However, Oedipus’s decision for fleeing is what was necessary to make his fate come true. Undoubtedly, this is what was meant to happen because Oedipus allowed it to. Perhaps if Oedipus ignored the god and never did a thing then perhaps the outcome could have been different for Oedipus. However it did not turn out that way and the choices that Oedipus made is what led him to his doom.
The idea of fate has baffled mankind for centuries. Can humans control what happens to them, or is everyone placed in a predestined world designed by a higher power? The Epic of Gilgamesh and Oedipus The King highlight on the notion that no matter what, people cannot control what is destined to occur. Interestingly enough, many other distantly connected cultures had, and have similar gods or goddesses who play a role in the fate of individuals. Oedipus, King of Thebes, was told by the Oracle at Delphi that he would one day kill his father and marry his mother. Determined not to let this prophecy verify his fears, Oedipus does all in his power to prevent this from happening, yet fails. Similarly, Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, attempts to obtain immortality, but fails as well. Gilgamesh's and Oedipus's intense fear and ignorance cause them to try to interfere with their fates, leading to their failures and realization of the futility of trying to control destiny.
The elements of a character’s true personality and attitude make that fate. a reality and force the destiny to become the destination. The stories of Gilgamesh, Oedipus the King, and The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam. all teach the readers that destiny and character are intertwined. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, destiny and Oedipus’ actions.
“Aladdin” demonstrates how social class and power can affect the lives of different individuals. The 1992 film is an Arabian-style folktale, based in the time period of high poverty. Aladin is more than just a kids story, it has more meaning to it. It is a story that represents the struggle for lower classes in Islamic and worldwide society. In this story Aladdin struggled with poverty, he was a master thief who had a dream to make higher class. He was given his opportunity to take on his dream when he came across a genie who could grant his wish, which allowed him to become prince and marry the princess, but he was not satisfied with his success. In fact throughout the story of “Aladdin”, social class had made a huge impact on each individual character in the story,
When a person becomes trapped in a situation that stems from an individual with greater authority, being manipulative can be a very promising method to escape. The Thousand and One Nights does a very good job of being a good example of someone in this situation that uses stories within a story to capture encapsulate the attention of the reader. Despite the many little stories that go into the text, the main story behind it all is about a king named King Shahrayar and how he goes insane after catching his wife having sexual relations with a slave. After he sees this happen, he realizes that he can never trust any woman again and none of them are trustworthy. By expressing his views on women, he decides to marry a different woman every night, then the next morning have them killed by beheading. This is an ongoing event that brings death to most of the women in the village. Soon after, the king’s Vizier’s daughter, Shahrazad, came up with a brilliant idea that will end up saving her fellow countrywomen and hopefully keep the king from murdering so many innocent people. Her method behind all this is by telling the kind a different story every night that leaves him on a cliffhanger, making him curious enough to keep her alive for another day to continue her story. Shahrazad keeps herself spared from the king because of her cunning, and compassionate personality.
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.
Qadar is the concept in Islam that Allah has decreed what will occur in the universe. This concept is simplified in the novel, Brick Lane, to the common concept of fate, “that which is inevitably predetermined”. The book focuses on the fate of several characters and their view on fate itself. The novel has an epigraph by Heraclitus in it that follows this theme, “A man’s character is his fate.” The quote relates to the novel through the characters personalities. A person’s personality is something that is predetermined. A person cannot change their personality no matter how hard they try. This means that their life is ultimately based off a predetermined set of characteristics that define them. Nazneen, Chanu, and Hasina are both key examples
A vital subject in the play Oedipus the King is the relation between the characters action and fate. Oedipus had the choice to either let destiny play its course, but as seen in the play Oedipus’s chooses his own downfall, he choose free will. His persistence to uncover the truth about his past and his identity are substantial. Fate on the other hand is accountable for many other important and disturbing events in the play one being responsible for Oedipus marring his own mother. Sophocles clearly suggests that both fate and one’s action works hand on hand, it is clear and becomes difficult to judge Oedipus for incest given his unawareness.
In both of these tragic plays, “Macbeth” by Shakespeare and “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, a catastrophic fate transforms the lives of the protagonists and ultimately becomes a sad reality for both of them whether they flee from it or pursue it. In this way, the authors present fate and destiny as the unavoidable reality every human will have to face, and whether it is a simple statement made by strangers or satirical act of unmerciful gods, it shows life is not in our hands but rests in the power of outside forces.