For week 6, I read part A of Tales of a Parrot. I was once again drawn to a story that featured multiple stories within one story, mainly because there is a lot more variety when picking what to write about, and these types of stories are generally more interesting to read through!
This set of stories within a story is fairly similar to Scheherazade, which is the story I wrote about in week 5. This is something that stood out to me almost immediately as I was reading the first story within Tales of a Parrot. In both readings, story telling is being used as a form of clever persuasion in order to prevent something bad from happening, in the most general terms. In Scheherazade, Scheherazade begs her father to let her marry the sultan, who had a history of killing all of his wives, only to entrance him with her story telling abilities. In week 6's story, the parrot, who has recently been witnessing one of his masters being unfaithful to the other, begins to tell stories in order to save his life and save his masters' marriage. Whenever his master wishes to visit with the prince while her husband is away, the parrot tells her stories that hook her in and distract her from her own desire for infidelity.
I particularly enjoyed the very first story told by the parrot, in which a merchant sets out on a journey to trade with different countries, leaving his wife behind to fall in love with a Mogul. In the parrot's story, there is a peculiarly familiar wise old bird that advises the wife not to cheat, but promises to say nothing of it. In the coming months when her husband finds out, the wife assumes it was the bird, and tries to murder him. The bird stays away for months to regain it's strength, until one day the husband exiles the wife just as she had exiled the bird. In telling this story that is eerily similar to the situation the parrot's master is in, the bird delivers an ominous warning of what would happen if the husband were to find out of her disloyal deeds. This concept of telling a seemingly-innocent story that conveys a much different meaning is one that I both found very intriguing and would love to replicate in a story of my own this week!
The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot, by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi (1801). The Parrot of Ferukh Beg
This set of stories within a story is fairly similar to Scheherazade, which is the story I wrote about in week 5. This is something that stood out to me almost immediately as I was reading the first story within Tales of a Parrot. In both readings, story telling is being used as a form of clever persuasion in order to prevent something bad from happening, in the most general terms. In Scheherazade, Scheherazade begs her father to let her marry the sultan, who had a history of killing all of his wives, only to entrance him with her story telling abilities. In week 6's story, the parrot, who has recently been witnessing one of his masters being unfaithful to the other, begins to tell stories in order to save his life and save his masters' marriage. Whenever his master wishes to visit with the prince while her husband is away, the parrot tells her stories that hook her in and distract her from her own desire for infidelity.
I particularly enjoyed the very first story told by the parrot, in which a merchant sets out on a journey to trade with different countries, leaving his wife behind to fall in love with a Mogul. In the parrot's story, there is a peculiarly familiar wise old bird that advises the wife not to cheat, but promises to say nothing of it. In the coming months when her husband finds out, the wife assumes it was the bird, and tries to murder him. The bird stays away for months to regain it's strength, until one day the husband exiles the wife just as she had exiled the bird. In telling this story that is eerily similar to the situation the parrot's master is in, the bird delivers an ominous warning of what would happen if the husband were to find out of her disloyal deeds. This concept of telling a seemingly-innocent story that conveys a much different meaning is one that I both found very intriguing and would love to replicate in a story of my own this week!
The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot, by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi (1801). The Parrot of Ferukh Beg
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