Scheherazade

protagonist that gets saved and lives happily ever after with her hero. Scheherazade of “One Thousand and One Nights” is one the few exceptions. She was one of the first feminist stories of her time and of her culture. She gave power back to the women; and not with her body, but with her mind. “One Thousand and One Nights” takes place in 12th century Arabia. King Shahrayar is introduced to us by the narrator, Scheherazade, who happens to be his newest wife. She sets the tone for all the…

about the meaning, significance, and extent of the bravery of Scheherazade but rather focused on the wonderful stories she told. “I was amazed to realize that for many Westerners, Scheherazade was considered a lovely but simple-minded entertainer, someone who narrates innocuous tales and dresses fabulously. In our part of the world, Scheherazade is perceived as a courageous heroine and is one of our rare female mythical figures. Scheherazade is a strategist and a powerful thinker, who uses her…

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov begins Scheherazade with “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship.” To further demonstrate how Rimsky-Korsakov tells a story, the YouTube video will be added to aid in aural understanding, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNymNaTr-Y; time markings will refer to the listed video. At 0:18, the video begins with the strings in unison marked pesante, along with a deep, bellowing brass section. This marks the introduction of the sultan’s theme. This is followed by woodwinds holding a…

In “Great to Watch”, Maggie Nelson discusses “desensitization”, the lack of response to a stimulus due to a surplus of exposure to it (Nelson, 306). In particular, Nelson discusses desensitization in terms of “image flow” (Nelson, 304). In Azar Nafisi’s “Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran”, Nafisi reviews cases where the desensitization negatively affected society, but was able to be stopped. Moreover, in “Selections from Alone Together”, Sherry Turkle discusses some of the benefits of…

collection of stories from India, Persia, and Arabia and have been translated by various authors over hundreds of years. Even though it is a collection of different stories, they are all centered on the frame story of King Shahryar and his wife, Scheherazade, who narrates different stories for a thousand and one night in hopes that the King would stop killing innocent young women as punishment for his first wife’s adulterous act. The stories that she recounts to King Shahryar convey the great…

Burton’s version had credibility for his audience because he was a renown English explorer, linguist, diplomat, translator, and Orientalist. He was famous for his expeditions and his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. His version of the tales offered more than a mere translation, but a vast explanation about the Oriental lifestyle for his European audience. He divided the tales per day according to the frame tale and how the original storyteller Shahrazad told the stories to the…

identical first and last pages can be considered circular and thus infinite because the last page will lead the reader back to the first continuously. For an example, Stephen references the Arabian Nights. He specifically makes mention to the time when Scheherazade begins to retail the story of the Arabian Nights from the beginning in the middle of the text. He also explains that the text The Garden of Forking Paths shows the infinite outcomes of a single event, and therefore characters…

Since the dawn of time, humankind has clung together, holding on to the humanity they share that separates man from beast. Somewhere along the line, people stopped seeing humanity, and started only seeing humans. It soon became difficult to ascertain the purpose provided to all humans. From Nazism, to slavery, people have been unjustly ceased, enslaved, and slaughtered. People stopped seeing agency. What is agency? Agency is the ability for the agent, the person, place, or thing, to have meaning…

children with her and marrying her through the art of sharing one story after another, night after night. No doubt some of these tales were of romance and carnal desire. Now, I’m not suggesting that you memorize one thousand naughty stories. But if Scheherazade could introduce her- self to a king and become his queen with nothing but her voice and imagination, perhaps you can offer a few wanton words sure to put a tremble in your sweet- heart’s knees. Gaining Confidence Confidence is…

A Separation Asghar Farhadi's A Separation provides commentary on the current political and social situation surrounding Iran through the exploration of a middle-class couple's divorce and the conflicts that proceed as a result. There are many separations within the film, notably a separation of men and women. The dominance of men is presented within the first scene between Simin and Hader. Simin's request for a divorce and guardianship over her daughter is met with resistance, as Nader is the…