Women in Shahrazad’s Tales from the Thousand and One Nights

In the prologue of Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, the tragedy begins with treachery of Shahzaman’s wife and it ends with Shahrazad trying to save the women of King Shahriyar’s kingdom. Thus the character of a woman is not definite and Shahrazad uses her stories to convey this to the jaded King Shahriyar, who thinks his wife is an example of all women. Her stories have women who are just as spiteful and cunning as the kings wives, but they also have women of great integrity and kindness. Through stories as a medium, Shahrazad not only stalls for time and entertains King Shahriyar, but she is also attempting to bring him back into perspective.

The first two women to appear in Shahrazad’s story are cunning. While the tailor’s wife was foolish enough to stick a bone in the hunchback’s mouth, she quickly takes charge of the situation. First she says, “Your cries are of no avail. We must do something”[1]. The tailor ‘whimpers’, while his wife instructs him on her false plot. She starts each dialogue with a command, for example, ‘rise’, ‘take’, ‘give’ and ‘beg’ (Tales 24). The Jew’s wife is not much different, she takes charge immediately and deposits the hunchback in the neighbor’s house. This is reminiscent of the King’s wife calling out, “Come Mass’ood!” (Tales 17). And this trend of cunningness continues in the tales of the barber’s brothers. The first brother encountered the landlord’s wife was described as ‘wicked’ and ‘cunning’ and the others encountered an old woman enticed and tortured them (Tales 52). This pattern of deception amongst the women is parallel to the deceit of the Queens, not to Shahrazad.

There are several other examples of how the women in the stories are just as treacherous as the Queen of Shahriyar and Shahzaman, one of them being “the Tale of the Enchanted King”. Instead of waiting till the king leaves, this queen drugs her king and goes out of her way to have an illicit affair. However, these two cases are so similar in structure, it is perhaps the differences that serves to show why Shahrazad had told the King this particular story. The king of this particular story says, “Unable to contain my fury, I drew my sword and was about to strike her, when she sprang to her feet. . .” (Tales 101). The elements diverge here and in comparison, King Shahriyar’s fortune was better. He could have turned out much worse.

Not all the women of Shahrazad’s stories are malevolent or treacherous at heart. Toward the middle of the a thousand and one nights, the views start to shift. In “Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp”, the mother of Aladdin, “. . . sold the shop with all its contents and took to cotton-spinning in order to support herself and her child” (Tales 165). In contrast with the “black-souled hag” (Tales 66), this ‘old woman’ only wishes happiness on her son, as she said, “I am your mother, and you are my only child. My dearest wish is to see you married, and to rejoice in your happiness” (Tales 185). This shift in characteristics allows for the comparison of Shahrazad and Aladdin’s mother. When Shahrazad asks King Shahriyar to spare her life, she says, “For if you destroy the mother of these infants, they will find none among women to love them as I would” (Tales 405). ‘Queen’ is not mentioned anywhere in the prologue or the epilogue in relationship to Shahrazad, however, ‘mother’ is. The three children also stressed the state of her state of motherhood and indirectly through her story, the love in her character. So now there is this separation of the role that the former Queen of Shahriyar played and the role Shahrazad is playing now.

The loyalty of the mother figure is once again brought about by one of Shahrazad’s stories. In “The Tale of Kafur the Black Eunuch”, the mistress proceeded to genuinely mourn when Kafur told her husband was dead. “My master’s wife and daughters shrieked and rent their clothes and beat their faces…. My mistress set the entire house in chaos, smashing up furniture…” (Tales 238). Unlike the earlier women typecast after the Queen, whose loyalty to the King is non-existent, this mother figure is in genuine grief over the supposed death of her husband. It is also not only the mother figures that are comparable to Shahrazad.

In “The Tale of the Second Dervish”, both the jinnee’s woman and the princess sacrificed themselves to save the protagonist. The jinnee’s woman says, “How can I kill an innocent man whom I have never seen before?” even knowing she might die for her refusal to kill the dervish (Tales 270). It might as well be Shahrazad’s question to the King. The reason King Shahriyar kills his brides is because he does not want to submit to the same kind of ‘disgrace’ as before, even though he does not truly understand his bride (Tales 18). However, Shahrazad is an innocent to those faults and yet she is destined to die. Suddenly, there is a shift of stories where guilty women die and where innocent women die. Another example would come from the princess who went through great lengths just to return the dervish to his original human form. She, also an ‘innocent’, died unfairly and unjustly, even the dervish himself said, “I wished that I could have died in her place rather than see her delicate body reduced to singers, this innocent princess who saved me” (Tales 277).

Toward the end, the Shahrazad’s stories reflect upon her own situation. In “The Tale of the Second Girl” the girl had not committed adultery, and yet she was about to be put to death. She said, “The old woman went on persuading me until I put my head, as it were, into the bag and consented” (Tales 298). It was not even her idea to allow the kiss. However, it is her husband’s own suspicions and his distrust of her that caused the rift between them. It is King Shahriyar’s suspicions and distrust of women that prompted him to bed and kill every virgin bride he has married. Shahrazad regards his suspicions as unfounded but she tells him through storytelling.

Shahrazad goes to the King with a mission that she is destined to fulfill. She does not naively try to tell King Shahriyar that women are all good, and this is reflected in the representation of women in her narration. First there are women who are cunning and full of lies. However, there are also women who are innocent of treachery and deceit. There are women who are like the queen, becoming adulteresses at the first opportunity. Then there are those who are loving and loyal to the protagonist, much like how Shahrazad is loving and loyal to the King. After a thousand and one nights, King Shahriyar came to the conclusion that he does not need to kill Shahrazad because he finally realized that she is, “…chaste and tender, wise and eloquent,” and nothing like his late wife who caused him to go ‘half-demented’ at the sight of her with her slaves. Thus Shahrazad has succeeded in giving him the perspective he needed and that was not only her salvation, but the salvation of other women throughout the kingdom.

[1]Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Trans. Dawood, N. J. Penguin Books, 1954.