Famous Last Words Week 4

"A variety of topics involved with pharmacology, including neuropharmacology, renal pharmacology, human metabolism, intracellular metabolism, and intracellular regulation" from File Upload Bot on Wikipedia

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   I have to say that I was rather proud of my Storytelling post this week: I always put myself under pressure to make some part of the narrative that I'm retelling "fresh and new". I knew I had the capability to write a good twist on Arabian nights, but it took me a while to figure out what exactly I would do. The tricky part was: Arabian Nights already has so much inter-textual and self-reflective power by itself, just how Scheherazade tells the stories of characters within stories. So the only way that I knew I could enhance Scheherazade's mental game with the Sultan would be to add a new rule: that the Sultan would be given the chance to tell parts of the story as well. I wanted to retain that Scheherazade was still trying to win over the Sultan's empathy, but I thought it would be more interesting if the Sultan had become aware of her strategy and was given some power, and I think it worked out well in my retelling.
  My other classes are really starting to pick up their pace, but fortunately it's not too overwhelming (even with taking 19 credit hours total). In my psychopharmacology course we are finally getting to talk about schizophrenia and the anti-psychotics that affect it. I consider this a big step in my education as a future doctor, not just this subject matter, but the whole course in general. I think it's important that pre-medical students are able to take courses in their undergrad experience that make them feel like they're in medical school already, and my psychopharmacology is definitely one of those courses.
   That quality also goes for my experimental genetics and cell lab: we get to study unusual specimens and are able to make experimental conjectures about how the genetics of an organism are altered in both the natural and artificial settings (Makes me feel like a Jurassic Park geneticist! But really...).

Essay: Arabian Nights- Recurring Motifs

"One Thousand and One Nights", from uploader Chordboard on Wikipedia 

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   Probably the most obvious motif that comes with Scheherazade's tales is the way she keeps building each story within the previous narrative layer. The specific way she does this though is fairly interesting: every character who winds up telling a story within the story that they're in, tells their own story in order to save their own life or the life of someone they know. In the grand scheme of Arabian Nights, this is a blatant metaphor for how Scheherazade is using her stories to delay the death and suffering of not just herself, but of the families and girls that Sultan Schahriar destroys in his madness.
   Another motif that recurs in the series is that the person who is threatening to murder the storyteller is propelled by one of a few drives: either insatiable anger or unreasonable superstition. Ironically, Sultan Schahriar exhibits both in his current state of mind, because he hates women for both the deception that his wife used against him and he's completely convinced that all women are deceptively evil. Scheherazade is indeed deceiving the Sultan. However, she doesn't do this to harm him, but instead to heal him and stop the suffering he visits upon the families of his kingdom.
   The storytellers in each story seem to have more varied motivations than that villains however. They range from fishermen, a physician, and even a half-stone half-man. Like I previously stated, all of these storytellers are telling narratives to either save their own life, or the lives of those they pity or care about. I understand that the reason Scheherazade gives these people various backgrounds yet the same purpose is to convey the different backgrounds of the people in Sultan Schahriar's kingdom. They all hope to postpone the murder of themselves or those they care about by the antagonist, and their only hope is to try and get the antagonist to empathize with them. Knowing how the story of a Thousand and One Nights ends, I know that Scheherazade's strategy to evoke Schahriar's empathy works, saving herself and the kingdom.

Here is a link to the reading unit

Storytelling: Arabian Nights- The Story of the Greek King and Physician Douban Retold

"Arabian Nights", from Good Reads

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   And so Scheherazade tells the story of the Greek King and physician Douban, in her effort to try and save the girls of her city and their families from the horrible ritual of Sultan Scharhriar: each day the Sultan would marry a new young girl from the city to be his bride, and the next day she would be beheaded at the Sultan's whim. Like clockwork.
   However, the reason for this horrific practice was because of the Sultan's original wife betraying him with a leader of another kingdom, causing him to go mad with grief.
   The girl Scheherazade, who is an enchantress when it comes to storytelling, has been chosen as the Sultan's next bride, and her sister Dinarzade has insisted that she accompany her in the Sultan's palace. Up until now, Scheherazade has been able to stay her fate by offering a story every night for the Sultan to listen to. None of these stories has a true ending, for within each story that Scheherazade tells, a character within that story tells a story of their own to a different character. For one thousand and one nights, Scheherazade has decided to continue to tell these tales to Sultan Scharhriar until she sees that his spirit has changed for the better: hopefully he could find love in her stories again. And Scheherazade felt that tonight was that night.
   Before Scheherazade began her tale, she mentioned a new idea to Sultan Scharhriar,"My Sultan, would he who is as powerful as you indulge in a subtle change to my storytelling?"
   The Sultan replied,"What would be the nature of this suggestion?" Gathering her breath, Scheherazade responded,"That you lend me your voice and your mind to help me tell the story?"
   Scharhriar nodded and motioned her to begin the story. Scheherazade's sister Dinarzade, who was present, leaned toward her sister. "But sister!" Dinarzade urgently whispered in her ear "This gives the Sultan total rule over the story! Surely he will end it and your plan would have been for nothing!"
   "No, it does not." Scheherazade confidently retorted,"In order for him to continue enjoying my stories as he has for many nights before, he must now work together with me to continue it. I want to see if his heart has truly changed." Scheherazade then turned to Scharhriar,"Now where were we?"
 
   ...There was once a Greek King who had contracted a terrible disease that none of his royal aids could alleviate. He also never seemed to muster enough happiness to smile, no matter how joyful the circumstance he might be in. However, there was a wonderful physician, who had been reported to be the best in her corner of the world. She had heard of the King's illness and...-

   "No no..." Scharhriar interjected,"'HIS corner of the globe'... I have heard of Greek Queens, but I have never met OR heard of a woman physician."
   Scheherazade conceded,"Very well, my Sultan. But then the Greek ruler must be a woman, a queen, in order for us to reach the moral of the story."  Scharhriar huffed,"Very well, very well."

   ...He had heard of the youthful, beautiful Greek Queen's illness and decided to test his expert practice. This illness was from an old wound that the Queen had...

   "...And that wound came from her late husband," the Sultan interrupted,"who betrayed her not only in body, but in spirit."
   Scheherazade nodded,"I understand, my Sultan."

   ...So the physician had concocted a remedy, simple to him, that would cure the Greek Queen of her illness. Upon arriving and gracing the Queen in her current state, the physician asked,"...So, my Queen, when was the last time you went to frolic about, or be active for the sake of sport?"
   "Years... Not since shortly after my husband left." the Queen replied.
   The physician nodded,"I see... Might we try that? Perhaps only until you have sweat from your brow?"
   The Queen agreed. So she, the physician, and some of her courtesans played polo for most part of the afternoon until the Queen's brow slightly glistened with sweat. The physician decided to check up on her,"How are you feeling, my lady?"
   "Fine, fine! I haven't had so much fun in years! And now the ache in my head and my chest is slightly lesser." the Queen exclaimed. "Wonderful!" the physician replied,"Let us try tomorrow and see if you feel any better."
   So they did. For a thousand and one days and nights, the physician and the Queen had their sessions of play and sport, exchanging words and feelings of great importance to one another. By the end of this time, the Queen's illness had left her, and she was now smiling again. One night, as the the two were out riding alone under the moonlit sky, the Queen asked,"My dear, you have cured me, when all my other resources had failed me. How?"
   The physician smiled,"The body can never fully heal if the heart and mind remain ill." Realizing the cleverness of the physician, the Queen sighed and smiled back, kissing the physician on the cheek.
   A few days later, the Queen proposed that the physician not only become her court healer, but her husband. He accepted and they were wedded, living out the rest of their years together: laughing with each other in times of good, and helping to heal each other in times of bad. Yet, they had gotten into the unusual habit of telling each other the most wonderful stories, every night before they slept...

   Scharhriar was now smiling at Scheherazade, with a warmth and fondness that he hadn't shown in many years. Dinarzade blushed and looked away. Scheherazade realized that she was now blushing as well, but retained her gaze on the Sultan. "...Would you like to know what stories the physician told the Queen?" she asked.
   "Only if I get to tell the stories that the Queen told the physician." replied Scharhriar, beaming at her."Now, where were we?"

Author's Note:
   In the source story, a Thousand and One Arabian Nights, the girl Scheherazade has decided to become the wife of the Sultan that rules the city in which she lives. This is at the risk of her life, however: due to his wife betraying him with the leader of another kingdom, the Sultan Scharhriar has become mentally ill and adopted the brutal practice of marrying a new girl every night, and killing her the next day. He does this because his wife's betrayal made him convinced that all women were deceitful, and this is the theme to his madness. So Scheherazade becomes his wife as a step in her master plan: to tell him a never-ending string of stories, so that he would have to let her live "one more night" to hear the next tale.
   I chose Scheherazade's tale of the Physician Douban and the Greek King because I thought it would be a great juxtaposition to play on: just as Scheherazade intended to heal the mind of the Sultan with her stories, the physician would heal the Greek Queen. I wanted to add another layer to the narrative that Scheherazade weaves with her stories to Sultan Scharhriar: I wanted mostly to use the story of the physican and the Greek King to lead to a climax in the interactions between the Sultan and Scheherazade. The way I wanted to portray her crafting her story to the Sultan was to make her message abundantly clear: that she wants to heal him from his grief, just like the physician does with the Queen.


Here is a link to the story (The Story of the Greek King and Physician Douban)

Bibliography:
Arabian Nights' Entertainments, by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).
 

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

Reading Diary A: Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights, by pbario

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I have always wanted to explore the Arabian Nights tales, but I haven't had the chance up till now. I know the most famous of these stories, like most people, and I have also heard of the circumstances under which they are told: by the girl Scheherazade to her new husband, the Sultan. However, it's fairly enchanting to actually read the literature as it was originally structured, because the reader can readily understand the dire circumstances that cause Scheherazade to jump from story to story, each preceding one in the other.
   The story of the merchant and the genius is obviously one of the most potent tales, and it has to be (Scheherazade's life is at stake after all!). I find it interesting how the first day of Scheherazade telling the story ends with her talking about how the genius waits to execute the merchant, at least until he has finished talking about his wife and family. And then, when the story continues, the merchant is told that he has only a limited amount of time left. These twists in the story clearly show Scheherazade's state of mind desperately trying to find some kind of narrative foothold to make a story that never has to end.
   And then the next story, the First Old man of the Hind, continues because one of the three old men attending the merchant's execution by the genius wants to save the merchant's life a little longer. However, the intertextual irony does not stop here: the old man claims that his wife, the hind, was once a sorceress that turned is slave and his son into cows. However, whenever it comes time to slaughter either of them, they manage to arouse his utmost pity, even in their current forms. This could be thought of as a metaphor for how Scheherazade currently sees the Sultan: taking his cows (her) to slaughter, but not being able to do so. Granted, the Sultan is not executing Scheherazade for other reasons, but it's still a comparable situation.
   This narrative convention continues through all the stories the three old men tell to further delay the merchant's death.

Here's the link to the table of contents page for the unit