The Thousand And One Nights: The Roles Of Women

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The Thousand and one nights offers a unique perspective on the roles of women in that society. The roles of women are really interesting because they are treated different in numerous circumstances. On one hand, they are shown to be powerless, and on the other hand, some are shown to have absolute control. Throughout the beginning of the story, the status of women seemed to go from getting brutal and wicked treatment by men, to their ability to fight back, and then they are revealed as somewhat heroic. There are some major differences in how men and women are portrayed in The Thousand and One Nights. The main difference is that women are seen as an object and not as people. This is due to the unfaithfulness of both of the king’s wives. I found it brutal and unreasonable how the women characters in the stories are treated. The woman was clever in managing to survive in a society where women were not valued. The structure relies on her bravery and cleverness. In the beginning, women were treated badly. The sultan loved his wife, but once he finds out that she was unfaithful he then kills her at the break of dawn. Although, he marries a new woman each day, spends the night with her, and then kills her in the morning. His actions show us that the women were seen as deceitful, and the lives of women were meaningless shown in how many …show more content…

However, their very obstacle was man. Although, the women were often seen as unfaithful and inferior to men, Shahrazed portrays a feminist character by using her sneaky strategy and fearlessness of men to trick the king, save the women of the kingdom and help them overcome discrimination. If the king was to kill every woman after a night with them, this would have caused a population decrease and the kingdom would eventually run out of women for him to marry. This story makes the reader take sides of the women that the king is