The Disenchantment of the 1001 Nights Notion by the Representation of Sexuality in Craig Thompsons Habibi
- The disenchantment of the 1001 Nights notion by the representation of sexuality -
Thompson’s story of the slave children Habibi and Dodola builds up a density of themes, in which the reader immerses himself and for which he often wishes a knife to slice this multi- layered story to bring it into a chronology. It never loses its train of thoughts but still requires the reader to disentangle the story to understand it. The form of the story draws on the tradition of the 1001 Nights Stories, with its frame narrative and the numerous stories within the story. It takes the reader into a fictional Arabic fairytale landscape with stories and subplots about (Christian and Islamic) religion but also addresses topic such as social criticism and pollution.
One theme which permeates throughout the whole storyline is the bold depiction of sexuality. Thompson portrays a world in which unbreakable patriarchal power relations become visible, which was interpreted by some reviewers as an indictment to the role of the women in the Arabic world. Being the main source of criticism, some critics commented that the line between a fictive world and an allegedly ‘real’ depiction of the Islamic world is blurred, so that it could be assumed that Thompson tries to illustrate the Arabic world to reveal the abuse of (female) humans. However, as a matter of fact Habibi, with regard to the mixture of the thematic and cultural elements, cannot be interpreted as a factual depiction of the real world.
Its reference to the main story of the Arabian Nights, the story of Scheherazade, rather poses general questions on the representation of sexuality concomitant with the balance of power this implies. As sexuality in the Islam is a subject to negotiation and collides with the approach to it in the Western society, it is easy to see Habibi as criticism to the Arabic world. But more than seeing an attempt of enforcing a western view on the reader with regards to this topic, the focus should be
Thompson’s story of the slave children Habibi and Dodola builds up a density of themes, in which the reader immerses himself and for which he often wishes a knife to slice this multi- layered story to bring it into a chronology. It never loses its train of thoughts but still requires the reader to disentangle the story to understand it. The form of the story draws on the tradition of the 1001 Nights Stories, with its frame narrative and the numerous stories within the story. It takes the reader into a fictional Arabic fairytale landscape with stories and subplots about (Christian and Islamic) religion but also addresses topic such as social criticism and pollution.
One theme which permeates throughout the whole storyline is the bold depiction of sexuality. Thompson portrays a world in which unbreakable patriarchal power relations become visible, which was interpreted by some reviewers as an indictment to the role of the women in the Arabic world. Being the main source of criticism, some critics commented that the line between a fictive world and an allegedly ‘real’ depiction of the Islamic world is blurred, so that it could be assumed that Thompson tries to illustrate the Arabic world to reveal the abuse of (female) humans. However, as a matter of fact Habibi, with regard to the mixture of the thematic and cultural elements, cannot be interpreted as a factual depiction of the real world.
Its reference to the main story of the Arabian Nights, the story of Scheherazade, rather poses general questions on the representation of sexuality concomitant with the balance of power this implies. As sexuality in the Islam is a subject to negotiation and collides with the approach to it in the Western society, it is easy to see Habibi as criticism to the Arabic world. But more than seeing an attempt of enforcing a western view on the reader with regards to this topic, the focus should be