Question

Discuss the theme of deception in the story The Arabian Nights by Sir Richard Burton.

Accepted Answer

The theme of deception runs throughout The Arabian Nights, a series of Middle Eastern folk tales translated by Sir Richard Burton. These stories can best be understood as trickster tales, narratives that celebrate the power oppressed people can exercise by using their wits. The trickster theme begins with the frame story of Scheherazade, who stays alive by offering the king something he wants in return for her life.

Answer

Like folktales around the world, a main theme in Burton's translations of a group of middle eastern stories called The Arabian Nights is deception. These stories of deception are examples of trickster tales. Trickster narratives, which have an important place in folk cultures everywhere, celebrate the ability of those with very little power to use their wits to trick or manipulate the powerful.
Scheherazade, the storyteller, is herself a prime example of a trickster. Though women seemingly have no power against the king in her society, who can marry and execute them at will, Scheherazade becomes a powerful exemplar of the way the oppressed can exercise power. She does this by offering the king something he wants, the ending of a suspenseful tale, as a bargaining tool to stay alive another day. The frame of the book therefore shows that even the seemingly powerless have hidden power if they can discover what it is. It is also notable that Scheherazade deliberately maneuvers to take on the dangerous position of the king's wife so that she can save the lives of other women.
Not surprisingly, many trickster tales appear in the stories Scheherazade tells. One example is "The Fisherman and the Jinni." In this tale, a poor fisherman releases a jinni from a bottle only to be faced with death by the jinni, who is angry at how long it has taken to be released. However, the fisherman is able to play on the jinni's vanity to persuade him to show how he gets into his bottle. Once trapped there, the jinni has no choice but to bargain with the fisherman and offer him something worthwhile in return for his freedom.

Answer

Deception proves a key theme in the Thousand and One Nights, and this includes its frame story. The entire context of these events was shaped by the infidelity of Shahryar's first queen, and we should not overlook the deceptions of Scheherazade herself, who, before being married to the king, carefully coordinates with her sister Dunyazad so as to be given the opportunity to tell these stories before the king. And note how her stories themselves never resolve at the end of each night—she is trying to prolong her life, and it is through storytelling that she does so. None of this is spontaneous; it is actually very calculated on her part. That being said, as deception is usually viewed in negative terms, you should be aware that Scheherazade herself is a heroic character who wields deception not just to save her own life, but also to protect all the other women who would have been sent to die in her place (something she's very well aware of).

Answer

Deception is the core of the frame story of The Arabian Nights. Scheherazade contrives to escape execution by telling King Shahryar tales that begin and captivate him but that don't end. As she is free to choose for herself what she will or will not do (as long as her head is intact, that is), Shahryar must wait till the morrow to hear the conclusion of the tale. In the process, he must spare her life one more night and day. This deception on Scheherazade's part is because she knows the whole story of Shahryar's bitter disappointment over his unfaithful first wife, his determination that all women are betrayers of faith and loyalty, and the succession of young brides who are queens for a night and beheaded in the morning. Her actions are deception because she has plotted and contrived a way to postpone her imminent death by distracting and beguiling King Shahryar with her half told tales.

Thereupon said she: "By Allah, O my father, how long shall this slaughter of women endure? Shall I tell thee what is in my mind in order to save both sides from destruction?" "Say on, O my daughter," quoth he, and quoth she: "I wish thou wouldst give me in marriage to this King Shahryar. Either I shall live or I shall be a ransom for the virgin daughters of Moslems and the cause of their deliverance from his hands and thine."

While we can't examine all the nearly 1001 tales Burton published in 1885, we can briefly examine "The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad" and its embedded tales about the three Kalandars. The three Kalandras (mystics and beggars) are invited under a deceptive seal of secrecy, "WHOSO SPEAKETH OF WHAT CONCERNETH HIM NOT SHALL HEAR WHAT PLEASETH HIM NOT!" into the home of the three Ladies and the portress. Each tale told by the Kalandars centers around deception. Each Kalandar initially deceives the Ladies because each is in fact a Prince. The first deceived his uncle by sealing up the son and cousin with a secret lover. The second Kalandar intrudes into a deception in which an "Ifrit named Jirjis bin Rajmus" has kidnapped a Princess and is holding her captive.
The third Kalandar falls under the mercy and care of ten men, each missing an eye, who exile him to a lovely palace when his curiosity gets the better of him. There he seeks to deceive the men only to have his own eye knocked out by a horse's tail. Deception is the bedrock of Scheherazade's motives and tales and the cornerstone of the tales she tells.

The Arabian Nights

Discuss the theme of deception in the story The Arabian Nights by Sir Richard Burton.

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