The most notable thing in the prologue to me was the recurrent theme of misogyny. It was everpresent through nearly every sentence. In subtle ways such as use of words like “slut” (p.68), the king calling the women “his women and his concubines” (p.63) (which is ironic considering he was angry about them sleeping with other men), and the portrayal of women as foolish and stubborn with the merchant’s wife saying “I insist even if you have to die” (p.84). There were outright incidents of sexism as well what with the repeated dialogue “women are not to be trusted” (p.59). The careless violence of the men’s ‘revenge’ was made abundantly clear with Shahrayar foreshadowing that “[he] would have killed atleast a hundred or even a thousand women” (p.66) if he was the one to discover his wife in bed with a kitchen boy.
Most women were nothing but sexual objects in the prologue. Their descriptions revolved only around their physical appearance and their sexual appeal and acts, the objectification was truly uncomfortable to read about. An example of this being slipped in in a way not entirely obvious would be the description of Shahrayar’s wife as “strutting like a dark-eyed deer” (p.62).
The only women spared this fate are Shahrazad, who’s described as learned, wise, read and someone who knew poetry by heart, and her sister Dinarzad because she serves as only a device to further the plot by asking Shahrazad to tell them a story.
Our debate in class about whether Shahrazad is a strong female character also raised a few questions for me. Is she a strong female character to us because she was brave in deciding to face the king, or because she is described as a learned woman? Why is it that we do not see the women described sexually as strong female characters? Are Shahrayar’s wife and concubines not strong female characters for defying a clearly violent and egoistic man by exercising their sexual agency?
Those of the female sex existed only for the males in the story, whether it be to cheat them, to sleep with them or to be their downfall. I say female and not women, because even the hen in ‘The Tale Of The Merchant And His Wife’ exist only when the roost “jumped on” (p.85) them. The plot with the demon and his wife especially seemed to me a gross projection of fantasies rather than just another part of the story.
While on the topic of the hen and the roost, I would like to point out how the merchant takes advice from a roost, an actual animal, about how to treat his wife and “manage her” (p.86). The threat of the horrific abuse of being beaten raw with an oak branch is then passed onto Shahrazad by her father if she insists on marrying the king.
There is another repeated theme of finding comfort in others’ misery that stumped me. As far as my knowledge goes, a (self-proclaimed) religious text does not teach the readers to feel better about our lives because another’s misfortune is greater, and definitely not to actively seek out those with greater misfortune to make ourselves feel better. This is presented to us when Shahzaman finds joy in witnessing that his brother is suffering a greater misfortune than him, and when both brothers decide to venture out and return when they find someone with a misfortune worse than theirs.
It also seemed to me like the men were more upset about being betrayed despite being in positions of great power rather than just because their wives were sleeping with other men. The repeated exclamation of ” I am the king and sovereign in Samarkand, yet my wife has betrayed me” (p.59), and “Even though my brother is king and master of the whole world, he cannot protect what is his..” (p.63) by Shahzaman make this clear to us.
A question that lingered in the back of my mind throughout the reading was whether these views came from the narrator as an intentional set up, or the author as genuine world views. Unfortunately, I feel more inclined to believe the latter.
The Arabian Nights, trans. by Haddawy based on ed. by Mahdi, New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
