Arabian Nights:Reading Diary A

It was very easy to get lost in all of these stories! The "nested" storytelling technique in Arabian Nightsis fresh, but it requires the reader's attention. If I read this style again, I will definitely try to update a sort of map through all of the characters. One thing that the stories had in common that grabbed my attention was their purpose. Each story was told either directly or indirectly to save someone's life. Scheherazade, for example, decided to marry the morally confused Sultan to save other girls' lives. She postponed her life and theirs by telling the longest story imaginable. In the same manner, the old men and the merchant saved the life of another man by telling stories to distract the genius. The storytellers had all the power and used a mix of clever manipulation and distraction to hold on to human life, even if the victims were worthy of death. The good guys won out in these stories.

Another common theme was changing the human form instead of taking life. Human souls were cast to dwell in deer, dogs, and fish throughout these stories. The guilty people (the deer and the dogs) were left to be cared for by those they betrayed, while the innocent people were left to fend for themselves (the fish). I suppose the focus and intention here is forgiveness. Evil tyrants ended up not killing who they said they would kill, and sorcerers simply drove souls into other animals' bodies. Whether by distraction or forgiveness, lives were spared.

Scheherazade telling her famous stories. UnTextbook. Arabian Nights.