Preview

Sex and Lies in Arabian Nights Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1109 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sex and Lies in Arabian Nights Essay Example
Sex, Lies, and Open Sesame In Richard Burton’s translation of Arabian Nights, several stories revolve around three ideas; sex, lies, and violence. It seems that one idea hinges on another and the stories use one to justify the other. This paper will explore the use of sex, lies, and violence and their interdependence on one another throughout three stories. These stories are “The Story of King Shahryar and His Brother,” “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” and “The Hunchback’s Tale.” It will also discuss the strange use of these ideas in the stories as well as Arabian culture. Sex has been a mainstay in literature for countless years. Many love stories reach their highest point when the two perfect lovers consummate their relationship. However in Arabian Nights the idea of sex many times is used to create conflict or controversy and therefore leading to lies and/or violence. In “The Story of King Shahryar and His Brother,” King Zamon, after realizing that he forgot a present to bring to his brother, returns home to find his wife naked in the arms of a black cook. He is so enraged that he kills them both there by cutting them into two. Here is an example of sex promoting violence in the story. When King Zamon arrives in his brother’s kingdom he is overcome with grief however he does not tell his brother of what occurred in his home. The act of violence has sparked the need to lie about his actions and therefore continues the chain of sex, lies, and violence. Again in the same story a discovery of sex is made. While King Shahryar is on a hunting expedition, Shah Zamon discovers his brother wife involved in an orgy wife a black slave, several white slaves, and the King’s concubines. “Then they stripped off their clothes, and Shah Zamon suddenly realized that ten of them were women, concubines of the King, and the other ten white slaves.”(Page 5) After that they

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Rape culture is an idea that helped define a generation in the 1970’s and continues to hold significance in modern society. Although the term itself has been recently coined, the norms of rape culture have been seen in civilizations for centuries. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th century poem, displays ideas of rape and dominance within its stanzas. From a feminist lens, the role of Lady Bertilak is symbolic of Rape Culture through a display of dominance and disrespect from her husband and Sir Gawain, her objectification as a pawn in her husband’s games, the theme of hunting as it creates a parallel between the bedroom scenes and the actual hunt, and her representation of the whole female population.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shadow Spinner Analysis

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Because the Sultan had been betrayed by his first wife, he refused to trust any women. Every time one of his new wives did not please him, they would be slaughtered by the next morning. This went on for years, until Shahrazad came. She hoped that by telling him stories, he could be happy and would stop killing Persia’s women. As months passed, Shahrazad had been the first to survive more than one night in the Sultan’s harem. Wisely, Shahrazad would cut-off her stories, so the Sultan would be eager to hear the rest of it the next day, and she…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Other Wes Moore

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages

    (Warning: This novel contains some explicit language. If this is an issue for you or your child, please contact the English Department Chair at karthur@bcps.org to discuss. An alternate assignment can be created.)…

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Writing a sex scene gives an author nearly infinite opportunities and meanings which can add depth to a character and story. Despite not planning on reading sexually explicit books, this insight gives me the information necessary to analyze future settings in which this topic is…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bloody Chamber Essay

    • 761 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The text uses the occurrence of sex as an act of aggression, erotic brutality, and dominance in which the male partner is seen as sadistic and the female partner is seen as oppressed. This is portrayed by The Marquis’ wives, both past and present, as he objectifies them by placing them on display, enabling him to manipulate and mold them to satisfy his perverse erotic tastes. Additionally, all of the female roles are unnamed, only referred to by jobs for example the Mother, the Opera Singer, the Evening Star Walking on the Rim of Night, and the Romanian Countess (Carter 1990: 4), drawing attention to the idea of gender inequity as the women are not worth of a name (Barry 1995: 126). The act of sexual objectification by The Marquis lends itself to interpretation as The Bloody Chamber depicts the darker side of sexual relationships, exploring the essentialist idea that men and women are different beings. The text symbolizes the inequality between men and women in the ‘[m]ost pornographic of all confrontations’ (Carter 1990: 8), through the satirical images by Felicien Rops, where a fully clothes man is sizing up a naked women as though she is “a lamb chop” (Carter 1990: 8). From the…

    • 761 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Araby Hero

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Thomas C. Foster conveys that all tales derive from a single story in How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids. As a result, they all include a hero’s quest in which the hero gains self knowledge by finding themselves and their purpose. The hero’s quest relates to “Araby” by helping the reader understand that priorities should be chosen wisely to avoid conflict with ones self in the future; the destination along with the “stated reason”, the challenges and trials, and the “real reason” for the journey all build up that lesson.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Thousand and One Nights is an anonymous work, which represents a strong and clever female character that is both imaginative and creative. It is known as Shahrazad’s life-saving narration. An example of that is when on the night of twenty- seventh Dinarzad tells Shahrazad, “What an entertaining story!” and Shahrazad replies, “What is this compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if the king spare me and lets me live! (605).” She tells the king stories to stall being executed and the continuing story indicated that the King has spared her. Historically, men have always been the leaders of the families and that is whom the members of the families turn to in time of need. However, in this case rather than men taking critical roles…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the essay Sex, Lies, and Conversation, Deborah Tannen explores why marriages have such a high divorce rate and how conversation plays a key role in this. Tannen touches on many different opinions and viewpoints and supports a lot of these opinions with statistics. Her points are very clear, however the essay contains many unsupported opinions. The essay, as a whole, is very informational but also could be revised to better persuade the readers to Tannen’s viewpoints.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fiction Analysis Essay

    • 837 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Have you ever thought about why young girls are so ready to grow up and become sexually active? If you haven’t you might should think about it. What is the real reason? Why is it so easy for teenagers to give up their life to be sexually active and grow up? They don’t know the consequences of growing up too fast and trying things out too early. In the story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the author, Joyce Carol Oates uses the plot to reveal the struggles, dangers, and mental persuasions of teenage girls sexual innocence and becoming adult women too early.…

    • 837 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flowers for Algernon

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages

    it has "distasteful love scenes." You do not ban a book for briefly hitting on…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    After an issue of adultery arises in “The Thousand and One Nights”, the women in the story are murdered to prevent further adultery, not because they have committed adultery. The women are thought to be cunning and uncontrollable; therefore they must be killed, not as punishment but simply to protect the kings from further adultery.…

    • 1162 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Power and privilege were two topics that made themselves prominent throughout every story. In context, Shahrazad, was a compliant prisoner to a man entitled King Shahrayar whom possessed copious negative character traits like aggressiveness, arrogance and irrationalism. King Shahrayar was upset due to his wife’s deception which caused him to label all women as evil (Pg 9). As a form of what can be described as detrimental therapy the king vowed to marry one woman every night, bed her, then proceed to kill her the next morning until he was satisfied (Pg 14). Furthermore, he had all the recourses to achieve his goal as he was king and no civilian dared to blatantly tell him to stop, until Shahrazad. Utilizing unconventional resources, she gained power over the king by adamantly distracting him with her words night after night. She was privileged to be allowed to sleep in the king’s bed for more than one night, nevertheless she took advantage of her time. With sparse tones Shahrazad, a young, courageous, educated woman, utilized her talents of imagery and creativeness to encapture the kings interest while sparing over 1,000 different females by causing King Shahrayar to fall in love while teaching him moral lessons of power, forgiveness, revenge, and gender roles…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    America is known as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Americans say these words loudly and proudly, with abounding patriotism and strong conviction. If this statement is true, victim-blaming should not be a part of American society. If Americans are truly free, should they fear being blamed for their victimization? If a woman is taken into a back alley and attacked, should she fear that her race will prevent action from being taken against her attacker? If a wife is forced into intercourse with her abusive husband, should she fear that a judge will rule that she provoked her husband’s actions? If a man is raped or abused by another man, should he fear being ridiculed if he speaks out? Are those who blame these victims truly brave? There are many who deny that this is a true epidemic, but studies show that victim-blaming is alive and well in American culture.…

    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Arabian Nights

    • 2010 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Storytelling is a great teaching tool that has been used since the beginning of time. Oral tradition has been constantly used in many cultures and society in order to tell a story that consists of a moral that helps an individual learn about certain life lessons. These stories are passed down to them so they can be retold to their future generations. Although story telling has declined during this time period, the novel, The Arabian Nights, is a great example of how story telling has saved someone’s life. The Arabian Nights consists of many stories and tales that the main character Shahrazad tells King Shahrayar throughout 1,001 nights in order to survive execution in the morning and to avoid having other woman in the kingdom executed as well. Her stories capture King Shahrayar’s attention every night and leave him burning with curiosity as to how the story will end. In my opinion, being able to capture the King’s attention and connecting his life experiences to the experiences of the character throughout her stories is what helps Shahrazad save innocent lives, including her own life, from being executed.…

    • 2010 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The tales which are orally transmitted and composed over the course of several centuries, are mainly of Asian and Arabic origin, they have become an inextricable part of the Western cultural heritage as well. The stories of Princess Scheherazade,…

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays