Shahrzad's guile
BY FATANEH FARAHANI
The histoire is the what
And the discourse is the how
But what I want to know, Brigham,
Is le pourquoi
Why are we sitting here around the campfire?
Telling stories is a way of making ourselves visible.
Narratives reflect us back on ourselves like a mirror in which we look back on the past while seeking strategies for living fully in the present. This paper will explore the ways in which one collection of narratives, The Thousand and One Nights, provides a space for women to resist patriarchal subordination and claim agency as autonomous subjects. The female narrator, Shahrzad, demonstrates one strategy for survival and resistance in the face of overwhelming misogyny. Her example gives us a place in which to see ourselves as women, reflected as survivors rather than victims.
Like many other Iranians I heard about this collection and the different tales from it when I was child. I was used to listen to stories of the journeys of Sindbad the Sailor, Ala Ed-din and the Marvelous Lamp, The Nocturnal Adventures of the Caliph, Ali Baba, The Envious Sisters, stories of demons and kings and the adventures of the ladies from Baghdad. The world of imagination took me everywhere while my tired grandmother tried to force me to sleep. Now when I look back and analyze my desire to hear the stories from my childhood -- which are still very much present -- I can’t avoid comparing my grandmother’s wrinkled face with the sexy, beautiful and exotic (yes, even for me she looks exotic) image that I have of Shahrzad. I begged my grandmother for more stories and like Shahrzad she used to say to me “the story I will tell you tomorrow night is even more exiting”. My grandmother made me wait. She was Shahrzad’s worthy grandchild. My grandmother is still an image for me of a woman who embodies the importance of women’s oral tradition and demonstrates the significance of maintaining women’s history. However, my grandmother’s stories differ from Shahrzad’s in that all the girls in my grandmother’s tales were either asleep, or imprisoned waiting for a prince to wake them and rescue them. In Shahrzad’s stories she was not asleep or waiting to be rescued. Instead it was she who made the king awaken to reality. Shahrzad’s imagination and the power of her words resulted in the changes she was attempting. In a world where women are represented as awaiting rescue by men, Shahrzad exemplifies women who work to rescue themselves. This makes her a strong, narrative female role model.
Though the purpose of this paper is not to provide a detailed historical account of The Thousands and one Nights I believe the analysis of the collection and Shahrzad’s role as a narrator cannot be understood without a cursory understanding of its history. In order to achieve this aim I will provide a very brief description of the origin and the collection entrance to the West supply the reader with a general ground upon which to engage with my paper.
There has been considerable discussion and disagreement regarding the origins of The Thousands and One Nights. Scholars have discussed the origin and history of both the original manuscript and the subsequent editions of this narrative collection at length over the past century. The collection of stories which is known as ‘The Thousands and One Nights’ (Hezar va Yek Shab) originates from three distinct cultures: Indian, Persian and Arabian. The original core of the Nights was derived from a lost Persian book of fairy tales called Hezar Afsaneh (A Thousand Legends), which was translated into Arabic about A.D, 850.
The Thousand and One Nights was first introduced to the West by Antonie Galland (1646-1715), a French orientalist and talented storyteller who had widely traveled in the Middle East. The collection appears under different titles, depending upon the translation, some of which include The Thousands and One Nights, The Arabian Nights and The Thousand Nights and One Night. The most recent edition of The Thousand and One Nights is the one most commonly cited. The definitive Persian edition of the collection contains 314 stories that are told in one thousand and one nights.
Ross Chambers in Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction, presents several elements within the narratives such as seduction, the power of magic, charm, and situational power that work to create a sense of empowerment within the stories. These elements will be investigated in greater detail later in this paper. In spite of disagreement that different theorists have had about various issues raised in The Thousands and One Nights they all are agreed about the unique and powerful narrative techniques that govern the collection. Milani, Nafisi, Caracclolo, Pellowski, Sattari and Naddaf are a few of the scholars whose work I have examined who contend that the magical and erotic elements are core components of these stories. All the scholars I have studied discuss Shahrzad’s role as a narrator and her charming, magical and seductive way of telling the story.
The importance of Shahrzad’s performance as narrator in the collection is one central topic that has consistently come under discussion. The Thousands and One Nights is a powerful narrative and essentially is a story about telling stories, a work that is initially generated and ultimately sustained by the narrative act. It is a process of unfolding, which reflects itself, pictures itself and is about narrative in general. One of its key features is that it uncovers the power behind the text. Sandra Naddaf argues in Arabesque that the stories are grounded within an essential act of repetition. Repetition is a key element in the narratives, one that operates between the text, the characters contained within it, and the reader. The narration is repeated every night. Although the stories are varied, the repetition of motifs creates a dynamic between the characters and action. The reader interprets the stories from within her/his own perspective and experience. The narratives reveal different topics; love stories, crime stories, fairy tales, tales of demons and stories of difficult quests. Within these tales the morals include aspects of gaining knowledge, wisdom and piety and these morals are repeated throughout the text through different characters and scenarios. For example the story of the two kings and the genie reflects a theme of “women’s betrayal” that appears in other narratives within the text. Shahrzad aims to teach the king and make him aware of the consequences of his actions through the world of story. Jalal Satary points out in “ Afsune Shahrzad” ( Shahrzad’s charm) that the king heard his own story on night 602.
Ross Chambers in Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction reflects that story telling is about giving information. Walter Benjamin among many other theorists also concurs that storytelling is the act of sharing information. Benjamin points out that although the common belief is that information is valuable only so long as it is new, the art of storytelling resides in its capacity to release information even when the story is very old. Storytelling has the power to enable change, and the most important change is that within the relationship between the narrator and listener. In simple terms, the holder of knowledge, by sharing her knowledge, loses the influence and power over her listener. In the story Shahrzad becomes the king’s teacher. She entertains him with her stories, but she also provides him with information. Ross Chambers suggests that storytelling and writing are about exercising power. He points out that the language of storytelling is even called the power of narration and authorship is associated with “authority”. The narrator is the one who holds knowledge. The endurance of the narrator as storyteller and the narrative depend upon the approval of audience who has the power to insure the continuation of the narrative act. In the case of Shahrzad, her very survival depends upon her ability as a storyteller to engender the good will of the king. As Farzaneh Milani put in “Veils and Words: The emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers”:
Storytelling was also a strategy for survival. It saved Shahrzad’s Life.
Within the usual dynamic of informational power, the bearer of knowledge is only in a position of power when she/he has knowledge that others do not possess. Within narrative dynamics, however, this information is meant to be shared in order to build communication between the narrator and the listener/reader, thus allowing for a sharing of power in which both are equal participants. So while the narrator shares the information, in practice she gives up the claim of sole authority in the very act of exercising it. The narrator’s power lies in her ability to tell the story in a way that nobody else could. The information she shares and her method of communicating it must be unique in order for her audience to remain interested. In the case of Shahrzad, she needs to create a sense of anticipation for the king, something that would make him eager to hear rest of the stories. She needs to adequately pace the stories in order to keep his interest without making him impatient. Shahrzad succeeds in keeping the king within her power as a storyteller, anticipating the next tale by announcing at the end of each story that “the story I will tell you tomorrow night is even more exciting and thrilling.” She needs to maintain a balance in the stories that will keep the king excited at the prospect of another tale. She repeats the morals in the stories, but keeps the narratives different enough to insure the king’s interest, and thus provides an opportunity for the king to gain knowledge and wisdom. In this way Shahrzad not only insures her survival, and that of other women, but she also gently instructs the king and enables him to become aware of the effect his actions have on the people he rules. In effect she enables him to become a better leader.
Shahrzad is a master narrator and she tells stories in a dangerous environment. In that situation she was compelled to tell her stories as a means of avoiding not only her own death, but the deaths of other girls under the king’s rule. Telling stories is “her guile”, a method of manipulating the king and ultimately of writing herself out of danger. By telling stories she exercises the power to make social change, in this case to improve the safety of women’s lives. The narrative act in The Thousands and One Night is the most important act that can be achieved within the textual space. Azar Nafisi suggests in “Imagination and Subversion” that Shahrzad provides a genuine example of a narrator succeeding in saving herself by telling stories, and in doing so she functions as a kind of role model for her characters. Each story contains an autobiographic parallel to the events in her own life. Every new character introduced signals another strategy for insuring survival. The world of The Thousand and One Nights allows the reader to enter the realm of women and men’s narratives. The development of the character’s narratives allows the context of the lives of the men and women to emerge and become visible. Each story evolves to reflect many other stories; one tale contains another tale that in turn contains a third. It is this device that best represents the significance of the narrative act in The Thousand and One Nights. This story collection is a narrative of a narrative. Farzaneh Milani notes that Shahrzad uses her knowledge to change her relationship with the king, allowing their roles to become exchanged within the power dynamic:
Through the magic of storytelling she reveres the relationship of narrator, while he tunes into a passive and addicted listener…… She tells he listens. She mesmerizes, he is mesmerized. She controls, he is controlled.
The king learns for the first time to listen to listen to a woman. He is content with this kind of involvement just as Shahrzad is content with the king’s treatment. Shahrzad’s unique storytelling has been called her “guile”. The negative connotations of this word reflect the cultural oppression of women where a woman’s ability to manipulate for a positive gain - in this case her life - is seen as deceptive. It is this “guile” that allows Shahrzad to reclaim her history, write her body into cultural visibility, and to write the story of her body.
As Chris Weedon suggests in Feminism Practice & Poststructuralist Theory, individuals are persistently ‘subjected’ through and by discourses. Weedon argues that discourses generate and institute subjectivity. Shahrzad gains her subjectivity through “becoming” the king’s wife and satisfying both his sexual and narrative desires. She breaks the dichotomy of either assimilation or rebellion. However she is rebellious in her own way. She is far from conventional and owes her independent identity to this very oddness of her powers of imagination narrative ability. In gaining this subjectivity she is called manipulative and seductive. Fatima Mernissi in beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamic in Modern Muslim Society, has an interesting definition of the word “seduction”. She says:
Seduction is a conflict strategy, a way of seeming to give of yourself and a procuring great pleasure without actually giving. It is the art of abstaining from everything while playing on the promise of giving.
Mernissi’s definition echoes what Shahrzad tried to do. She seduces the king with the promise of a new and exciting story each night, and through her storytelling encourages the king’s desire not only for another tale, but for herself as a sexual being. Ross Chambers defines narrative seduction as follows:
Narrative seduction, then seems as complex and as varied in its tactics as are the erotic seduction of every day life; and its range, from active enterprise, through the “simple” invitation, to a carefully calculated “refusal,” is not dissimilar to what can be observed wherever people relate sexually to one another. What is constant is the basic duplicity whereby a seductive program is condemn so that a seductive program can be pursued.
Both Mernissi’s and Chamber’s definitions of seduction, in my point of view, are strongly related to and dependent upon the readability of the text. The readability of the narrative depends upon its power to provide meaning and enhance the anticipation of hearing more.
Sexual activity is one of the important elements, which stimulates and ultimately parallels the narrative activity. Shahrzad’s nights with the king please not only his sexual desire but his narrative desire as well. It is not accidental that desire, both in its physical and textual aspects, is the focal point. The Thousand and One Nights is replete with metaphors that are associated with desire. Nafisi points out that in this world man’s betrayal by a woman can only be accomplished within the sexual sphere and is punished by death as an act of disobedience. All three main male characters in the frame tale represent authority and employ force to expand their power over women and insure their own masculine subjectivities.
Farzaneh Milani, in Veils and Words, also talks about the process whereby king becomes a serial killer. She states:
Betrayed once by an adulterous wife, the king in A Thousands and One Nights vowed never to be betrayed again by a woman. He knew from his own and his brother’s experience that danger and hurt arise from intimacy with the women- the danger of dishonor, the hurt of betrayal, the pain of humiliation by deceit. Feeling defenseless against the pains caused by women, the king devises he only viable alternative he can think of. Unwilling to take the risk of intimacy with anyone who has the power to hurt him, King Shahriyar chooses aggression and destruction. By framing his urge for union in separation, he marries a virgin every night and has her murdered in the morning. Thus, he never allows women the chance to deceive him. To him, only a dead wife makes a loyal wife.
In this context, Nafisi examines the king’s power to control the speech and subjectivity of women. Nobody argues with the king. “The virgin victims are silent. They don’t have any voice.” Before Shahrzad’s entrance in the tale, Nafisi says that “the women in the story are divided into those who betray and then are killed and those who are killed before they have a chance to betray.” Historically, the “voiceless virgins” have been denied importance. Sandra Naddaf in Arabesque, in a critical reading of the tales, attempts to examine the notion of sexuality and its linkage to women’s role in the narrative act. However, even she does not comment on the virgins who are killed. They remain silent victims. Nafisi suggests:
They don’t quite exist because they create no images, leave no trace in their anonymous death. They are the other side of the coin to the “naughty girls” the queens and the demon’s woman.
Shahrzad is the only woman character who is different. What makes her different? Nafisi points out that she was called knowledgeable (dana) and with foreknowledge (pishbin). She doesn’t see the future, rather she reads the past. She uses her knowledge and her imagination to transform the king’s attitude toward women. She does this by allowing herself to be married to the king, and like the other virgins, deflowered by him; in essences she allows herself to be subjugated. However, she paradoxically uses her subjugation to the king to create her own subjectivity while teaching the king to overcome his fear of humiliation in order to embrace life rather than destroy it. As Nafisi points out:
She takes him (the king) to a world where his rule and his rules are alien and where he is so entranced by her tales that she can rule him, can teach him how to be a subject before he again becomes master of his own fate.
Shahrzad is a voice from andarun (inside) the haram that reaches outside. In Shahrzad’s time no women had a voice or images. Before Shahrzad there was a masculine history that did not allow women to be visible. Women’s experiences in Iran continue to be rendered invisible, although the example of Shahrzad reveals the opportunity for resistance to such silencing. Shahrzad made women’s lives visible in 1001 nights. She was a protester who felt the shadow of the death all the time. The shadow of death and the king’s power made her to feel hesitate all the time, but she did not allow the king to see that. Instead she made him hesitate each night when he contemplated whether or not he would have her killed. It was in those moments of hesitation that Shahrzad took the opportunity to give herself voice and make the king confront his own uncertainty. Her courage has meant that there are heirs to her legacy, voices to speak who also refuse to be silent. As one of Shahrzad’s heirs, now living in the one thousand and second night, I reclaim her voice as a tribute for the voice she gave to me.
tvs.se |
