Brains Vs. Beauty In Tales From The Thousand And One Nights

Brains vs. Beauty

In the Tales from the Thousand and One Nights the women are represented as fraudulent, cunning characters using their sexuality to their benefit. Some of these women are portrayed as deceitful harlots, while others honestly use their sly wits and beauty to their advantage to obtain what they desire. In the time of the Tales, female sexuality was prevalent, so it’s not absurd to read about all the infidelity and sexuality in these stories; however it is interesting to see how each female character uses that to her benefit. Some women show to be evil minded while others have good intentions.
Throughout the Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, there are different stories that Shahrazad tells, depicting the women in different
The woman is distraught and thinks of a plan to free her lover. She goes to five men to help her achieve her goal. She goes to the Governor, the Vizier, the Cadi, and the King asking them to sign a petition to free her lover. Instead of telling them that he is her husband, she tells them that he is her brother and her sole support. The four men are so at awe with her beauty and sexual demeanor that they agree, but only if they can have her for one night. She convinces these men to meet her at her house, “it is more fitting that I should wait for you at my house, were there are neither slaves nor maidservants to intrude upon our privacy”(107). She then goes to a carpenter and asks him to build a cupboard of four large compartments, he said he’d do it with honor and free of charge if she would give him one night to himself. The sly woman agreed and in the midst of leaving told the carpenter she forgot she needed five cupboards, not four. The carpenter did as she ordered. One by one the men started to show at her house, she greeted each man kissing the ground before him and saying slick remarks such as, “first take of your clothes and your turban. You will be much more comfortable in this light robe and bonnet”(109). Not soon after there’d be a knock at the door, the woman would tell the men to quickly jump into the cupboard because that was her husband at the door. They all ended up in the cupboard, but the woman made sure to have all petitions signed so that her husband could be freed. Once the men were locked up, she rescued her lover. In this specific story, Shahrazad showed the King that not all women are unfaithful. She did use her sexuality to her benefit to connive these men into her ultimate goal, to free her lover. She used her wit just as Shahrazad had. This particular character in the book goes against the perception in the