1001 Nights A Storyteller's Perspective

# Intro:

The 9th century story telling is much different from our time today. The *1,001 Nights* also known as *The Arabian Nights,* is a tale of many spoken stories curated into a novel. It begins with King Shahryar who is sent into a heartbroken rage at his late wife’s infidelity. He then sets himself to remarry and kill a new wife each day. The king also has a visor who has two daughters. The youngest Dunyazad marries King Shahryar and whilst the eldest Scheherazade creates a plan to tell a story to the king that lasts over 1,000 nights. How was Scheherazade able to keep the king's attention for so long? In my research I will analyze the art of storytelling, specifically Scheherazade's technique.

# Storytelling Is an Art:

            Today stories are told as selling points so that a consumer may empathize with their product. At one point all stories were by word of mouth. These stories had no author, they were for the community created and consistently retold by the mouths themselves. Stories were told around a fire which invoked a sense of kinship. Storytelling can inspire others and give a sense of freedom. Stories are entertainment, stories are a distraction, stories are influence. These stories were able to warp themselves, as over time some of the original tales had editions or extra segments to make the story sound better. So, what exactly makes storytelling an art? “Narratology,” in other terms, is the study of narrative and narrative structure and how that affects human perception. To tell a great story depends on many things: structures, features, what exactly happens in the story temporally, how these sequences are all interconnected with each other, how a conflict affects the main plot and how the story had changed from beginning to end overall.

# Scheherazade's Skill

In acting and in live performance, voice is important as it enables on to project one's feelings very clearly. Scheherazade’s performance was able to invoke a change in the king’s mind. Her main goal was to live till the next day. There is much pressure in creating stories that invoke an emotional response to certain audiences. There was a sense of urgency as she had her own reasons as to why she was distracting the king each night. Her own incentive was to stop the king from killing so many women in his distressed tirade. “Scheherazade is a professional storyteller. Empowered by her own reading experiences, she is well aware of storytelling practices and their impact on her audience. At the same time, she also understands the border between the fictional and the real. By enchanting the king through her art of storytelling, she fulfils her goal of taking him out of his revenge-seeking world and postponing his crime against herself. In other words, as David Pinault says, “Scheherazade tries to word off this violence [the King’s violence of threatening to kill her] by offering stories as ransom for her life” (1992: 9). She finally succeeds in changing his mind through both the tales she tells him and, more importantly, the way she tells them, or the manner of her narration.” (Nayebpour, Karam, 85).

This manner of Scheherazade’s narration is what is enchanting the king each night. What exactly is it about the way she tells a story, that allows her the next daylight? Scheherazade is a persuasive narrator. The first story she tells is the story of the Merchant and the Ifrit. In the *Arabian Nights* she began with

“I have heard, O fortunate King, that a wealthy merchant, who had many dealings throughout the lands, rode out one day to settle a matter of business with one of them. When it became hot, he sat down under a tree and put his hand in his saddle bag, from which he took out a piece of bread and a date. He ate and when he finished the date, he threw away its stone, at which a huge *‘Ifrit* appeared, with a drawn sword in his hand”.

Scheherazade begins her tale as if she is respectfully gossiping with the king, this is important as it gives an automatic sense of closeness. The king is a man who can trust few, so being able to feel he relax and let his guard down is a pleasant change for him. As she continues, she first speaks of a merchant, this character is used to invoke the king's sense of relatability to the protagonist. He is a king; he deals with business and merchants throughout his daily routines. As Sheherazade tells of what this merchant is doing, she is very descriptive of her character's movements which allows the king to visualize what is going on. She also uses rhyme with the words *date* and *ate,* which create rhythm in her tale. Using rhyme in her story invokes a sense that her story is like a song. As she continues, she speaks of a huge ‘Ifrit with a sword in its hand, the placement of this otherworldly being is important as well. It’s bizarre, yet it works as the nature of this being’s presence in HER story is to create a sense of chaos, if she were to suddenly cease, the king would be left wondering about what happens next.

# Scheherazade's Preformance:

According to Peter Heath’s scholarly review of David Pinault's “Story Telling techniques in the Arabian nights,” Scheherazade implements 5 techniques in her story telling.

###### 5. *Dramatic Visualization, ‘the* representing of an object or character with an abundance of descriptive detail, or the mimetic rendering of gestures and dialogue in such a way as to make a given scene ‘visual’ or imaginatively present to an audience.’ (p.25)”

As David Pinault points out, Scheherazade is able to use these techniques as a way of strengthening her storytelling and allowing herself to become entertainment. The audience of the *Arabian Nights* can see her impact on the second night of her story telling.

“Morning now dawned and Scheherazade broke off from what she had been allowed to say. ‘What a good, pleasant, delightful and sweet story this is!’ exclaimed Dunyazad, at which Shahrazad told her: ‘How can this compare with what I shall tell you this coming night, if I am still alive and the king spares me?’ ‘By God,’ the king said to himself, ‘I am not going to kill her until I hear the rest of this remarkable story,’ and so they spent the rest of the time embracing one another until the sun had fully risen. The king then went to his court; the troops arrived together with the vizier, and when everyone was there, he gave his judgements, appointing some officials, dismissing others, and issuing orders and prohibitions until evening. The court was then dismissed, and the king returned to his palace, where, when night came, he lay again with Scheherazade.”

According to this excerpt it can be found that the king had been so moved that he spared her life once again. This is an important observation in relation to Scheherazade’s ability to make her story telling a performance. The King uses the diction such as *good*, *pleasant*, *delightful* and *sweet*, describing the how her story had personally affected him.

It can be assumed that she used the technique such as *Dramatic Visualization* in order to gesture and enliven the scene she depicted orally. She implements *Formal patterning* to entice the king to listen further along to her story as his response to his own preconceived action was “I am not going to kill her until I hear the rest of this remarkable story”. Which shows that Scheherazade is able to access the kings anticipation toward her story, which allows her to manipulate his decision consistently.

# Conclusion:

The tale of *1,001 Nights* also known as the *Arabian nights* has many stories within a story. Scheherazade was able to use her storytelling to save her own life by telling many stories to an angry king. She was able to use important narrative techniques and skill. Through her actions the king empathized and related with her words. The tale of *1,001 Nights* also known as the *Arabian nights* able to emphasize Scheherazade’s techniques of storytelling and show case that as an art which is important aspect of the culture of the era of Abbasid era.

# Works Cited:

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Bonington, Richard Parkes, 1801-1828. Arabian Nights. Artstor,

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 library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000837649

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Heath, Peter. *International Journal of Middle East Studies*, vol. 26, no. 2, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 358–60, http://www.jstor.org/stable/164775.

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  Nayebpour, Karam. “Narrativity in The Thousand and One Nights.” Advances in language and literary studies 8.4 (2017): 85–90. Web.

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Walter Crane (British illustrator, 1845-1915). The Arabian Nights. 1873. Artstor, library.artstor.org/asset/AMCADIG_10310847750

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