Arabian Nights By Lily Burgess – Year 9 Drama Kitab alf laylah wa-laylah (One Thousand and One Nights) is a collection of West and South Asian stories and folk tales written in Arabic during the ‘Islamic Golden Age’ In English, the Tales are known as the ‘Arabian Nights’. The common structure of the play is the primary story of the ruler Shahryar, meaning ‘King” in Persian and his wife Scheherazade and the ‘tales/stories’ that she tells are structured around this story. In short, all the stories stem from Persian King and his new bride. Shahryar is shocked by his own first wife’s infidelity and consequently he has had her executed. Shahryar, then forms the view that all women are not to be trusted and fuelled by his grief and bitterness begins to marry a succession of virgins, which he has executed the next morning, before the new wife can dishonour him. Eventually, the ‘vizier’ who is charged with finding Shahryar with a new wife is unable to find anymore virgins for the King to marry. Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter, offers herself as the next bride in an attempt to stop the slaughter of Bagdad’s young women and the execution of her own mother, who suffers the same fate, if she does not find the King a bride. Scheherazade, has a plan, and asks her sister, to stay each night with her and the King. Every night Scheherazade tells a story to the King. The King is curious about how the story ends, and each morning he postpones the execution, so that Scheherazade can finish the story. Over time, he begins to feel real love and trust for his wife. Over the next 1001 nights she tells a new story. Some stories are framed within other tales, while others begin and end on their own. Primarily the play is in prose, although verse... ... middle of paper ... ...s is the use of the ‘story within the story. Dramatic Visualization, which is representing an object or character with descriptive detail, gestures and dialogue in such a way to provide the audience with a visual real or imagined. Fate and Destiny, is a common theme in Arabian Nights. That is destiny manifests itself through an anomaly and then another, so that a chain of events and destiny is generated. Foreshadowing is the use of repeated references to some character or object, which appears insignificant at first and then, is the bases for the destiny of the tale. Most notable is the use of Arabic poetry; the use of pleading, beseeching and praising towards the powerful is most significant in Arabian Nights. ARABIAN NIGHTS enthralled me and the rest of the audience with its rich suspense, romance and humour. Well done Ravenswood Drama Department March 2014!!!
Galchen creates the character of her narrator to be very similar to that of the young narrator in “Araby” in a modern setting. In their youth, each narrator becomes infatuated and obsessed with someone who does not realize. The narrator of “Araby” falls in love with his friend Mangan’s sister, as seen in that he states that “when she came out on the doorstep [his] heart leaped” (123). He forms an obsession with her, as evidenced by the fact that he “had never spoken to her . . . and yet her name was like a summons to all [his] foolish blood” and in that “her image accompanied [him] even in places the most hostile to romance” (123).
The language in this written is in the apropeiet of the year wher this story talk about, and is popular written. It is very easy to understend for all age who watch the play and is a stage as comedy should be. The language is funny, and it doesn't let you stop laughing. It is a wild and wacky farce and rolling audience with echoing. To many part of pras we can remember and use as a comic tops of our dicenery and in the recent memory.
Through the actions of the male hegemony and the mother figure, both plays show the different perspectives both sexes have towards homosexuality. The patriarchal figures, show an intolerant and abusive perspective whereas the mother figures show a more understanding way of coping with the identities of their sons. By seeing the reactions of both males and females, it is to say that the maternal figures of the play show a more comprehensive attitude towards the struggles that the male protagonist undergo. Both plays are related to today´s society, because there are still families in which homosexuality is not accepted. People are still
To realize the vision of the play, the script, set-up, costumes, stagecraft, sound design, and acting have to communicate a unified message with which the audience will relate. The script will be tailored to ensure that the audience can understand the play as it proceeds. This is in terms of the language and terms used. Though the language will not be modern, it will be English that can be understood by the audience. This will be English of antique England as it will give the play a feeling of ancient times. The scriptwriter will carry out research on the level of understanding the local people will have of ancient English so as to ascertain that the script matches this level. Although many plays of that era were sung and accompanied by dance, this play will be acted out with spoken word rather than songs. This is because speaking will ensure the audience hears the conversations as they go on and that they understand. This is ...
To understand the depiction of the Arab Muslim woman in William Beckford’s Vathek and in its contemporary Oriental fictions, we need, at the beginning, to trace her development in the Western fiction long before the 18th century. This chapter examines the representations of Arab Muslim woman in Western literary texts , covering the period from the eleventh century to the seventeenth century ,and examines how these representations pave the way to her representation in the eighteenth century, and to what extent Vathek’s women can be recognized in them.
Chaucer challenges some of the men in the story by putting them in a position where they are not in control. For instance, when the knight has to answer to the king after raping the maiden the king wants to sentence him to death, however his wife pleads her husband to have leniency with the knight, thus leading her to take control over the situation. Also, when after the knight marries the crone, she asks him the type of wife he prefers to have his responds by allowing her to control the outcome of events. By the men letting the women take control in this story, they are surrendering their own power and are handing it over to their wives. This exemplifies an effective use of satire because in Medieval England, women were not the ideal person to have control or power whatsoever. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” points out that although women are not originally in a high place of power, they are capable of using their physical appearances to control their husbands both a sexual and emotion way. Over all “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” is a well thought out tale that is the perfect depiction of how women in Medieval England are not usually in a high position of power but can still have the ability to control the lives of not only themselves but their husbands as
Centuries ago in Elizabethan England there were many traditions about marriage and the treatment of women. One strong tradition of these times was the practice of marriage between races. Interracial marriages were considered extremely taboo. (High Beam). In this era marriages were arranged by the parents with strong help from the local church. The individuals had little choice as to who they would marry. (Elizabethan England Life). Yet another example of these traditions was the respectable treatment of women. While the husband was in charge of his wife, as was the father, the husband were expected to treat the women right (Elizbethi). In spurning all of these traditions, Shakespeare demonstrates a view of marriage far different from that of Elizabethan England, in doing this he is trying to plant new ideas in the people who read or view the play.
Writers often use symbolism in the story to give a more vivid description rather than just saying, pictures are a perfect example. Symbolism is the art of using any object, place, name or anything that represents something rather
Women have played a significant role throughout time and this is portrayed in many works of literature, including Thousand and One Nights and the Canterbury Tales. In both of these works, women are shown to be very intelligent, experienced, manipulative, lovers, and fighters. Women since the beginning have been thought to be liars and both characters in Thousand and One Nights and the Canterbury Tales have all these characteristics and similar themes. The main characters are Shahrazad and the Wife of Bath, Shahrazad is fighting to live while the Wife of Bath is simply on a journey playing a story telling game. Although in very different situations they both have the same strengths and similar characteristics, and this adds up to show the role of women at the current time of the works and now.
Direct characterization, foreshadowing, and metaphors were some of the figurative language that was used in the story. One example of foreshadowing in the story is how the readers knows that the princess hates the beautiful young lady who waits behind one of the doors. She is extremely jealous of her, and it is possible to conclude that she may not signal her lover to pick the door where the lady waits to marry her beloved. The king is described as “semi- barbaric” because he has two personalities. He is half barbaric, which means he acts brutal (hurts/ kills people over little things) and he is half civilized which shows he has government
Similar to other works by Shakespeare, such as The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream embellishes the pressures that arise between genders dealing with complicated family and romantic situations. The plot includes a duke who is going to marry a woman he conquered in battle, the king and queen of the fairies embroiled in a fight so fierce that it unbalances the natural world, and a daughter fighting with her father for her right to marry the man she chooses. The girl’s father selects Demetrius to marry his daughter, but she is in love with another man, Lysander, who loves her in return, and her friend Helena is in love Demetrius, but he wants nothing to do with her. Considering the fact that males were dominant during that era, whereas, men chased women, and women remained submissive, Shakespeare dallies with those traditional roles and there are several possible reasons why. Perhaps he made women a stronger force in his plays because he wanted to give his audience a break fr...
Despite the male dominant society of Ancient Greece, the women in Sophocles’ play Antigone all express capabilities of powerful influence and each individually possess unique characteristics, showing both similarities and contrasts. The women in the play are a pivotal aspect that keeps the plot moving and ultimately leads to the catharsis of this tragedy. Beginning from the argument between Antigone and Ismene to Eurydice’s suicide, a male takes his own life and another loses everything he had all as a result of the acts these women part take in. The women all put their own family members above all else, but the way they go about showing that cherishment separates them amongst many other things.
The play is about a strong-willed woman, Antigone, defying the laws of a proud king, Creon. Antigone is torn between her devotion to the gods, her brother Polynices, and her loyalty to the king. Creon, ruler of Thebes, issued the order to leave the traitor Polynices’ body unburied.
Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us a better understanding of how it affects the similarities and difference of the film versus the play.
In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period. Instead it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry. The first idealizes women as a catalyst to male virtue, insisting on their absolute purity. The second fears and mistrusts them for their (usually fantasized) infidelity, an infidelity that requires their actual or temporary elimination from the world of men, which then re-forms [sic] itself around the certainty of men’s shared victimization (Neely 127).