Merchant And His Wife

The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife is a medieval tale found in A thousand and One Nights. It is roughly 2 pages long. The story, involving talking animals, is considered a fable. In A Thousand and One Nights, The king finds that his wife is cheating on him and then kills her and her lover. Because he does not want to give any woman the chance to hurt him, he kills them the next day after sleeping with them. Shahrazad is the daughter of the king's vizier. She knows she must do something to stop the king from killing all of the women. She asks her father to offer her to the king and he reluctantly does so. The story of the Merchant and His Wife is told by the vizier to his daughter in the efforts of trying to sway Shahrazad from her plans. In the story the vizier tells, the merchant tells his family he is dying when he isn’t. The wife tells him to tell the truth, which frustrates the merchant. He wishes she would stop and is advised to beat her so that she will stop bothering him. The merchant beats his wife and she swear to stop talking. The story does not persuade Shahrazad to change her mind and she ends up following through with her plan to spend the night with the king. Shahrazad has her sister help and tells her she will ask to see her after she has slept with the king and her instruction is to ask for a story.

From the merchant, the moral can be that poor actions or pride can drive to cause other harms. The merchant tells a lie and his wife keeps reminding him of his wrong. He then takes out his frustration on her and beats her instead of telling the truth. When trying to connect the tale to the story, from the woman we can learn that doing what's right isn’t always the best for you. The wife tries to get her husband to do the right thing and as a result she is beaten. Shahrazad is acting as a martyr, risking her life so that hopefully no other woman must