"In what ways can "King Schahriar and his Brother" be considered a feminist text?" During the 18th century, a collection of Middle-Eastern and South Asian stories were compiled into a book now known as "One Thousand and One Nights". The opening story in the collection is "King Schahriar and his Brother", and it is a story about how the king of the Persian Empire turned to cruelty and violence after finding out his lover had committed adultery. Despite the king being the main character, we have an array of different, interesting characters such as the Grand Vizier, and his daughter, Scheherazade, who is the "hero" of the story. The text is quite abnormal for a folktale, as it does not follow the typical structure and format a folktale does. …show more content…
Scheherazade, the grand vizier's daughter, plays a pivotal position in the plot of the story. As mentioned earlier, the king of the Persian Empire had found out his wife had committed adultery, and as revenge, he wed a woman every night, and had her executed the following morning. No one acted against the king, quite the contrary, people cowered in fear, and merely hoped bad luck would skip them. Scheherazade, on the other hand, was not one of these people, as she decided to take matters into her own hand, and end this injustice. She uses her intelligence and all the resources she can access to pacify the king. One of these resources is her craftiness and intelligence. She is capable of shifting and morphing to adapt to her environment like a chameleon; when asking her father to allow her to marry the king, she says "I implore you, by all the affection you bear me, to allow the honour to fall upon me." Her speech is formal, and we can assume that it is deliberate. The word "implore" is used to convey her strong emotions, particularly her desperation. She uses the pronoun "you" twice in that sentence, and that is meant to direct the grand-vizier's full attention to Scheherazade and make him listen to her more carefully, as well as to emphasize his importance and impact on her plan. The phrase "all the …show more content…
She has the most active role in the story, which is ending the killing of the young women by the king. She declares that "If I fail, my death will be a glorious one, and if I succeed I shall have done a great service to my country.", which proves how active of a role she has in the plot. The language which she uses has "heroic" connotations to it. A "glorious death" is usually a phrase used to describe the death of a hero who sacrified himself for the sake of his country or his beliefs. A hero who died a "glorious death" is remembered dearly and appreciated greatly by the people of his town. Scheherazade's words could be interpreted to have a deeper meaning beyond the obvious. When a hero dies a "glorious death" it is not in vain, indicating that even if her plan had failed, her death would not be meaningless nor pointless. She had calculated it and weighed out the possibilities to know that even if she died, she would still have such an impact that her death would be considered a glorious one. The phrase "glorious death" could also be considered a contradiction, due to the contrasting nature of the words "glorious" and "death". Typically, death would not be considered "glorious", rather gruesome or tragic. The contradiction further proves how active of a role she has due to the fact that she planned everything so thoroughly to the point of being able
Margery Kempe did something that many people (especially women) would not dare to do- she broke away from the identity that her society had molded for her. The Book of Margery Kempe is one of the most astonishing documents found of the late medieval era and is the first autobiography to have been discovered. Margery Kempe does not shy away from telling the story of the personal and intricate details about her adventurous life. It is hard to say what influenced Kempe to go through such lengths to have her book written. Many think she wanted others to understand and witness how difficult it was to live through the social norms and expectations as a typical wife and mother of the 14th century. Little did she know, her life story would travel through history and show how molding of society influences social norms and self-identification, which are prominent, combating issues today.
Euripdies' The Bacchae is known for its celebration of women's rebellion and patriarchial overthrow, claims which hold truth if not supremely. The Thebans, along with other women, pursue the rituals and culture of Dionysus’s cult which enacts their rebellion against men and the laws of their community. However, this motion to go aginst feminine norms is short lived as they lose power. When Agave comes to her epiphany, Dionysus is the one who is triumphant over Pentheus's death, not Agave or her sisters These women must be punished for their rebellion against both men and community. This female power is weakened and the rebellion muted in order to bring back social order and also to provide the story with a close. Female rebellion actually becomes oppressed through The Bacchae due to its conseqences and leading events of the play. This alludes to the message that women who do not follow traditional roles of femininity are subject to the destruction of an established society.
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’.
Throughout history death has been a fascination to many authors, often personified as cruel, rigid, and ugly. In Cocteau’s Orpheus, however, death (or perhaps merely a face of death), is personified through a beautiful and strong, young woman. While this façade fools Cocteau’s characters, he uses many clues to indicate the princess’s role such as appearance, dialogue, and actions.
From her tenacity and personal strength in defying the law to her tragic death, Antigone captures the audience’s pity and sympathy. She is the tragic hero.
When the King's wife dies it becomes imperative that he was to marry again. However, he would not settle on any woman unless she was as beautiful as his late wife was. Ironically, the only woman in the kingdom that possesses the beauty of his wife is his daughter, with whom he becomes obsessed. In the tale it is said that, "…In every respect she was like his dead wife…" suggesting the projection of an anima ideal. This leaves no room for the princess to be different from her mother (Jewett, 20). She is the bloodline of the wife and is just as beautiful. The King plans on having an incestuous relationship with her. This is not the sign of a good parent. This type of relationship is symbolic of the faults of parents in 19th century Germany. Not all parents knew how to act the right way and Brothers Grimm account of monstrous parents brought a social light to this.
human race of the 20th century is birth control. It’s because birth control has increased women’s rights by
...er of what he hears people around the town saying about the situation. Haemon says, “No woman ever deserved death less, and such a brutal death for such a glorious action… Death? She deserves a glowing crown of gold.” The play seems to praise the actions of Antigone and it is never seen that she is looked down upon for what she did, except by Creon.
Enderwitz, Susanne. “Shahrazad Is One Of Us: Practical Narrative, Theoretical Discussion, And Feminist Discourse.” Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 18.2 (2004): 187-200. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
...r sacrifices of our enmity” this tells us how they realise that their actions have caused death and can no longer continue. “I will raise her statue in pure gold”, the word “gold” resembles how precious she was to those who loved her as gold is an extremely valuable metal. “Pure” reminds us of her innocence and youth which makes her death even more tragic.
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.
Gender roles have been a predominant factor in our world since the early emergence of human societies whether they are positive or negative. They are based on expectations that societies have over the people in them. The Epic of Sunjata, shows us how men and women are treated almost equally in different forms. Women are praised for their ability to birth leaders, which is similar to the early Greek Society. In most societies, women are treated less equal than men. This was prevalent in the early Indian society. No matter the gender role, it has been shown that any society cannot survive without both men and women.
In the Antigone, unlike the Oedipus Tyrannus, paradoxically, the hero who is left in agony at the end of the play is not the title role. Instead King Creon, the newly appointed and tyrannical ruler, is left all alone in his empty palace with his wife's corpse in his hands, having just seen the suicide of his son. However, despite this pitiable fate for the character, his actions and behavior earlier in the play leave the final scene evoking more satisfaction than pity at his torment. The way the martyr Antigone went against the King and the city of Thebes was not entirely honorable or without ulterior motives of fulfilling pious concerns but it is difficult to lose sight of the fact that this passionate and pious young woman was condemned to living imprisonment.
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.
One of the main issues in “Anna and the King” is the differences between men and women. What is less obvious is that those differences are of two types: the existing inequality of the social status of men and women, and the ways in which men and women try to deal with (end or prolong) this inequality.