One Thousand and One Nights have been translated by various authors over hundreds of years and it is a collection of stories from Middle East and South East Asian countries. Despite its numerous backgrounds, the stories are all stemming out from the frame story of King Shahryar and his wife, Scheherazade, who narrates the stories for a span of one thousand and one nights in an effort to stop the King from killing more innocent young women as punishment for his first wife’s adulterous act. The stories that she recounts to King Shahryar express a greater sense of adventure, fantastic imagination, and magical creatures that symbolizes the beliefs of Middle Eastern countries. Nevertheless, there are several important themes that come out of the stories such as the relationship of crime and punishment, power and wealth, and tensions between the sexes that are present from both the ancient civilization of Middle Eastern countries and present day Middle Eastern countries. This paper will focus on the frame story, “Story of King Shahryar and His Brother”, to illustrate the beginning of a recurring theme in all of Scheherazade’s stories of the unfair balance of power between the male and female characters.
Women were subjected to many things in the One Thousand and One Nights, especially an unfair balance of power. In the frame story, women were portrayed as disobedient wives who deserved nothing better than death. The two brothers, King Shah Zaman and King Shahryar found out that their wives had been unfaithful so they executed them without question. When King Shah Zaman found his wife, “asleep on his own carpet bed embracing with both arms a black cook…when he saw this the world waxed black before his sight and he said: ‘If such case happen while I am yet within sight of the city, what will be the doings of this damned whore during my long absence at my brother's court?’ So he drew his scimitar, and cutting the two in four pieces with a single blow, left them on the carpet.” King Shah Zaman committed this act without any hesitation or reservation, and most importantly with no remorse. This incident gives the readers a compelling view of women in the Muslim society, in that they are simply second-hand citizens who deserve death when they commit an adulterous act. Also, it gives the readers an assumption that it is both just and legally right to kill a woman in Muslim societies if they commit wrongdoings without the jurisdiction of the law showing a clear lack of political power.
Women were given no voice and were looked at as inferior and never equal to men. As punishment and revenge for what their wives did to them, King Shahryar “commanded his Wazir to bring him the bride of the night that he might go in to her…And when morning dawned, he bade his Minister strike off her head…On this wise he continued for the space of three years, marrying a maiden every night and killing her the next morning.” As portrayed in this quote, women were treated badly and his actions revealed that the life of women were meaningless in that they were deemed merely as objects of pleasure, and property, to be married, or killed at will. He commanded the Wazir to bring him a virgin every night so he can have pleasure with her and kill her the next day and repeating such heinous crimes for three years without being reprimanded by anyone. This depicts the gender role differences in their society, in that the men are given the ability to be the governing sex, to dominate the society and be viewed as rational, brave, and powerful. As rulers of the country, they are given the capabilities of making their own rules and doing whatever they please, whether it be claiming young women as their wives and killing them the next day or claiming them as slaves, and no one can oppose them. While women, on the other hand, were expected to fall silently under men and were regarded as irrational and sensitive people whose sole purpose was to please and obey them.
Throughout the frame story, men regarded women as their property, as prizes and servants who deserved nothing but beatings or death if they disobeyed them. However, we are given a modern view of women in Scheherazade’s character. She embodies a feminist role in that she is portrayed as a stronger female character in a male-centered society. Scheherazade is the oldest daughter of King Shahryar’s Wazir, who insisted on her father to allow her to marry King Shahryar when her father had troubles finding women to be presented to the King. Even when her father refused, she resisted in such a way that displayed her fighting spirits in that she threatened her father that if he continued to go against her wishes, then she will be forced to tell the King that her father is going against his commands. She displayed her courage and strength in that she was not afraid to voice out her opinions and wishes against him. She displayed her determination and eagerness to do so even if it meant threatening her father and going against his wishes because she had already set her mind in a schematic plan to end the killings of young innocent women. She chose to sacrifice herself to marry King Shahryar to secure the safety of all the young women who will be executed as a punishment for the actions of the King’s first wife. Instead of doing nothing, she chose to “be a ransom for the virgin daughters of Moslems and the cause of their deliverance from his hands and thine” She does so by narrating different stories each night making sure that it is entertaining and suspenseful enough to keep herself alive.
Scheherazade is well versed in several topics since she “had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had purused the works of the poets and knew them by heart, she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts, and accomplishments. And she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.” She tried to use her intelligence and clever plan to end the oppression and in a way express her rights as a woman. She has become a highly educated woman, which allowed her to be at an equal level of intellect among the accomplished men of her time. Her act of bravery and willingness to risk everything to save other young women gives her character a more modern persona. In that she is not submissive to the customs of the male-centered society and she is trying to expand her rights as a woman while continuing to follow the traditions of the Muslim society. She is different from the other women that her father introduced to the King in that she used what she had learned from all her readings in a didactic way to change the Kings perspectives and to secure her survival. Even though she knows that she has a death sentence hanging over her head, her perseverance and her willingness to sacrifice her life and raise the flag for all the women and try to end the oppression is a true act of valor.
The portrayal of the unequal power between men and women in One Thousand and One Nights is rather an interesting depiction of how the Middle Eastern countries are predominantly a patriarchal society and how they treat their women in the society. Throughout the stories, men are regarded as the highest power and are seen as the dominating figure in society. However, there are numerous roles that women play in the stories, which we begin to see in the frame story. On one hand, women are shown to be completely powerless and are desired by men for pleasure purposes, and then on the other hand, through Scheherazade’s character she is displayed as someone who has the ability to be strong enough to stand up for her own rights without steering far away from the traditions of the Muslim society.