Reading Diary B: Arabian Nights

"The Arabian Nights, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp", by Courier Litho. Co.,

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   Continuing the fisherman's story about the King and the Physician Douban to the genius, I find it funny how the fisherman announces the redundancy and irony of the exchange that they're having. Completely breaking the narrative wall, the fisherman says,"You see what has passed between the Greek King and the physician has just past between us two." This is also an interesting choice made by Scheherazade, because it feels like she has made her point to the Sultan quite clearly through her metaphor upon metaphors in her stories. Now that her ruse has begun to become apparent, maybe instead of trying to outwit the Sultan she is trying to appeal to his feelings and nostalgia from listening to her stories. This story of the physician also seems to be the first story in which the storyteller dies, which seems to be further confirmation that Scheherazade is starting to prey on the Sultan's feelings rather than his logic. It's also kind of a geopolitical point: the Arabian leadership of the time of the Sultan might have looked down on the Greek leadership, so what would that say about the Sultan if he were to execute Scheherazade now as the Greek King had done to the physician? It would bring him down to their level.
   In the story of the King of the Black Isles told by the man who is half man, half stone,  Scheherazade makes another point in her story that breaks the narrative wall, but this time it seems like a full-on criticism of the Sultan's behavior, which is rather daring of her! The half man, half stone being tells of an enchantress who decimates the intertextual Sultan's people by turning them into animals. The intertextual Sultan orders the enchantress to change back the people to their original forms by saying,"Every day at midnight all the people whom you have changed into fish lift their heads out of the lake and cry for vengeance. Go quickly, and give them their proper shape." This acts as yet another metaphor for what Scheherazade is trying to get across to her Sultan: like the fathers of the girls that the Sultan weds and then kills, the fish all scream every day because of this barbarous act. Yet like the intertextual Sultan, Scheherazade fights every day to save her people.

Here is a link to the table of contents of the unit