1001 Arabian Nights

Embedding - story within a story
1001= a lot... and then some!

SUPERIMPOSITION-
go to bed, have sex, tell story
make love [sex] make life [baby] make art [story]

MORAL: if men and women aren't getting on, they should go to bed and talk

Parallels to Shaherazade: telling stories suspends death. Absence of narrative means death

doctor, christian, jew, married couple etc - all are cardboard figures. All are flat stereotypes.

ARABESQUE: repetative patterns - carnival aspect of literature and fantasy

CHAPTER SUMMARY

THE STORY OF KING SHARYAR AND HIS BROTHER
- 2 brothers whose wives betray them
- Woman, jinnee, rings
-Agree to never stay married to a woman long enough for her to betray them

THE TALE OF THE OX AND THE DONKEY
-vizir warns Shaherazade against marrying Sharyar. Demonstrates his point with OX and DONKEY story:
-ox envies donkey's easy life. Donkey tells him if he pisses around, he'll be left alone. ox does, and donkey has to do his work. Allah grants the farmer ability to understand animals if he tells his secret, he dies. His wife is harassing him and learns from a cock how to treat women 'properly'. Shaherazade marries Sharyar

THE TALE OF THE MERCHANT AND THE JINNEE
man accidentlly kills a jinnee's son by chucking a date stone at him. 3 sheiks barter for his life: junnee gives them 1/3 of the man's blood if he likes their stories:
1st sheik- cow confusion - gazelle
2nd sheik- dog brothers - dogs
3rd sheik - wife enchants him - mule

THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNEE
man finds a bottle on beach - opens it - jinnee comes out and says he has to kill him. fisherman tricks him back into the bottle. jinnee tries to get him to let him out again. fisherman tells of the tale of the Kin Yunan and the Sage Duban
1. KING YUNAN AND THE SAGE DUBAN
king whose lerosy was cured by playing polo. Evil vizir tries to persuade king duban =bad. king says he is talking nonesense and is just jealous like King Sinbad
2. THE TALE OF KING SINBAD AND HIS FALCON
King sinbad on hunting trip - wanted drink but his falcon kept knocking it out of his hands. he injured it, but realised it was trying to tell him the drink was poisoned. it died and sinbad felt very guilty for killing it
- back to king yunan 3: THE HUSBAND AND THE PARROT (basically chaucer's miller's tale)
- back to king yunan 4: THE PRINCE ANDTHE OGRESS.
prince on hunting trip, finds maiden, follows her. she turns
out to be an ogress trying to lure him back to her lair to
eat him. prince scarpers
- back to yunan
- back to FISHHERMAN AND JINNEE
fisherman caves in; jinnee gets him to cast his nets. he catches fish and jinnee tells him to take them to the king. in return, the kind will make him wealthy. Fish talk. Black man bursts through wall. Asks them if they're keeping their pledge, and then upsets the pan. King gos to place where fish were caught. finds 1/2 man, 1/2 statue who tells his tale

5. THE TALE OF THE ENCHANTED PRINCE
- wife drugs him every night and shags a black slave. he wounds the slave when wife is away. wife goes into mourning. turns prince half to stone and tortures him every night

- Back to fisherman - 6. KING'S TALE
king toes and kills the slave and poses as him. tells woman to release spell over prince. spell of lake and its people is also removed. much rejoicing. prince marries fisherman's daughter (it was thanks to the fisherman that his kingdom was liberated) etcetc and they all lived happily ever after.

7. THE EBONY HORSE
king wants to trade daughter for a flying horse (wood) prince Kamar-al Akmar (her bro) = livid. Flies away on horse. 2 buttons: 1 up, one down. learns to control it. makes a pit stop at a palace. falls in love with a princess and wants to marry her. tells his dad. Quote p85 "by Allah if my son returns home to me, i'll destroy the horse so that he'l be forced to stay on the ground where he belongs and i won't have to worry about him anymore"
princess pays a visit to her future inlaws. sage kidnaps her and horse. flies to Greece. captired by King. Sage imprisoned. King fancies Princess. Kamar al Akmar = on search. disguises himself as a doctor. says he will gure her (she is acting mad) says he needs horse to cure her. king says 'whatever' prince flies off with her. they marry, the horse is destroyed and they all live happily ever after.

8. ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES
hids in a tree, see thieves go into cave with treasure. he does same 'open sesame'
ali's sister in law is curious about what ali's wife
wants to weigh gets coin imprint in wax on scales. kasim threatens ali with the police if he doesn't let him in on the secret. kasim caught and killed by theieves. ali tells kasim's wife he'll marry her to show she'll be cared/provided for;. Morglana (slave) does all the dirty work - tidying up all the loose ends, ketting kasim sewn back together and buried etc (baba mostafa)
robbers on a hunt for their stuff enlist baba mustafa. marks on door - morgiana finds and marks all doors x2. hide in jars. 1 goes to see ali and would give signal to others. disguised as oil merchant. morgiana uncovers plot. she heats up oil and pours it into jars - thus killing robbers. leader finds out and scarpers. bury corpses (secret leader sets up shop in market. befriends ali's nephew invided back for dinner. morgiana recognises him, dresses up as a dancer and kills him (with a sharp ceremonial knife) ali gets his newphew to marry her.

9. ALADDIN AND THE MAGIC LAMP
gets set up with a job as a merchant by his uncle. goes on treasure hunt. instrucet to get lamp. aladdin can't get out because weighed down with gems. moor (uncle) thought = insolent so locked him in the cave. Jnnee appears - Aladdin gets out. uses jinnee for food and sells the platters to a jew (who cheats him) for income. old jewller tells aladdin " jews do not repsect the laws of the moslems and are always cheating them " p148
sultan's daugter visits town. Aladdin dalls in love. his mum thinks he's insane "who would ever dare ask a sultan to wed his daughter to the son of a tailor!" she goes to the king, asks, shows him the jewells, king says 'ok' vizir miffed because the princess is promised to *his* son. king breaks his promise to aladdin. aladdin gets jinnee to bring the two to him in their bridal bed. he shuts the vizir's son in the toilet and sleeps in the same bed as the princess (nothing indecent happened) in the morning, he gets the jinnee to take them back. she tells her mum what happened. same thing happens the next night. marriage is dissolved. al's mum reminds the sulatan of his promise. he sets al a challenge. aladdin passes test with flying colours: uses jinnee to get whatever he needed/desired. king agrees to marriage. everylone loves aladdin - allah in heaven, aladdin on earth etc. moor returns gets lamp has 40 days to find her and bring her back or the sultan will kill him. aladdin finds wife and house (ring jinnee) drugs and kills moor and all goes back to normal. moor has evil brother. persuades princess palace needs a rukh egg. aladdin gets jinnee to get it. jinnee has a hissy fit p208 as the rukh is is histress. but pardons Al because he didn't know. he tricks the moor's bro by pretending to have a headache and then kills him. and they all lived happily ever after.