The Thousand And One Night Essay

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Danielle Czirr Professor Pierson Eng 203 3-30-18 There is evidence of a relationship between the style and theme in the arabic text, The Thousand and One Nights. Every tale in The Thousand and One Nights deals with many questions about human life and experiences that contribute to each theme and supports the style of the story’s frame structure, which is a story within a story. Although The Thousand and One Nights lays out a variety of themes, the theme of power can be displayed not only in style of the frame story, but in the theme of the individual tales as well. The stories in the anthology are connected to the frame style by similar conflicts and designed to help Scheherazade persuade the king to spare her life. Scheherazade is a striking example of power and strength in the frame story. She …show more content…

The demon will let the merchant go if the demon finds the stories of three old men interesting. The man with the deer hopes his story is just as amazing and strange, and uses his story as a form of power to influence the demon to grant him one third of his claim to free the merchant. Each tale told is part of a chain of tales that is set up to be better than the last. On the fifth night the tale of the shepherd’s daughter was told by another man in the demon’s presence. She used her powers to influence the father’s decision to change the evil stepmother into a deer with her use of spells and oaths. With his powerful story, the father was also granted one third of the claim. Two other men told similar stories to receive one third of the merchant’s claim to help him go free. Once the claim was granted by everyone before the demon, the power of persuasion led to the merchant departed from his arms. This set of stories exactly parallels Scheherazade’s own experience of being held hostage to the

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