Week 4 Reading Diary: Arabian Nights

Indecisiveness has been the theme for this weeks reading selection. After careful consideration, I have chosen Arabian Nights since it is morbid in its own little way. Since I already know the story of Aladdin and the lamp (thank you Disney), I have decided that I am only going to do half of the readings for this week so I can read about new topics and find new interests. 

One aspect I found rather interesting about Arabian Nights is that it is a series of stories being told within stories being told: it is a story Inception! Scheherazade is telling the Sultan stories because he has decided that he is going to kill her and his interest in her stories are the only things keeping her alive. So Scheherazade tells stories about a person who then tells a lengthy story about one or two more people. It's a story within a story. 

This makes things difficult for this week because I am not sure whether I should do an inception story or just one of the stories individually. I think that a story within a story is very clever and takes a lot of work and creativity to accomplish. I really enjoyed the Scheherazade's stories from when it was her talking to the Sultan to her actual telling of the stories. The complexity was amazing and very interesting. 

The Story of the Fisherman

This was definitely one of my favorites because it was so good all by itself. I believe this story is all about how people want to lash out towards innocent people after they have been wronged by one really mean person. One idea I really loved after reading other student's Storytellings this past week was how someone took a somewhat complex story and turned it into a story about a child's birthday. I was thinking about making this one into something similar, or possibly making it from the fisherman's wife's perspective. 

The Story of the Merchant and the Genius
I really enjoyed the overall flow of this story, not because it was particularly my favorite but because it originated from one story and branched off into two other stories. The way that Scheherazade used the story to manipulate the Sultan to keep her alive (fulfilling her ultimate goal) was very intelligent.