Essay On Women In Tartuffe And 1001 Arabian Nights

Women are portrayed in Tartuffe and 1001 Arabian Nights in very contrasting ways. One work portrays women as equals to men and perhaps more intelligent than men and the other work portrays women is unfaithful and as slaves for the husband to do whatever they want to get the wives to submit to do what the husband wants them to do. Each work has quite a few different women that are portrayed, but the portrayal of each is almost always very similar to one another. In 1001 Arabians Nights the overall portrayal of women is extremely negative. The main portrayal of women is that they are all unfaithful to their husbands. The main example of unfaithfulness is towards the two main kings in the story. First the king Shahzaman’s wife ends up “lying in the arms of one of the kitchen boys” which because of this he kills his wife and declares that “women are not to be trusted.” The other main example is in what happens to the other king, king Shahrayar. King Shahzaman sees that king shahrayar’s wife is having an affair with one of the slaves while the king is on a hunting trip. These two examples are basically the model of what most of the women do in the stories in 1001 Arabian Nights. The other main portrayal of women in 1001 Arabian Nights is that they are like slaves in that the husband can treat their wives in whatever they want. The …show more content…
The biggest way is that the most intelligent and insightful as a female maid. The character’s name is Dorine and she is the personal made of Mariane. This character throughout the story is able to show the other characters reality like how Tartuffe is a hypocrite before most of the characters have found out. At the beginning of the play Dorine refers to Tartuffe as a “But he’s a hypocrite and merely flaunts/This so called godliness (lines 74-75).” She says this and Madame Pernelle still thinks that Tartuffe is still this angel that can do no