Content area
Full text
Female sexuality and its place in the patriarchal order is a central theme of the Arabian Nights. Questions of the nature, limits, and potential dangers of female sexual desire drive the narrative of the frame tale and many stories in the collection. The frame tale is set in motion by a transgression of patriarchal authority (a sultan's wife's liaison with a black slave), which only gains in intensity and scope as events unfold. Soon, women's loyalty (and by implication the ability of men to control their bodies) is called into question. Shahrazad has to defend her fellow women against Shahrayar's rage by answering the charge of female infidelity, which arises as a natural consequence of the opening episodes. Using her narrative skills, as well as her own example, she shows the king a different type of woman, one who does not pose the same threat to marital and social institutions.
How to interpret the underlying theme of the Nights depends on the perspective from which one chooses to see the narrative. Taking the standpoint of Shahrazad, some have advanced feminist readings (e.g., Lahy-Hollebecque; Malti-Douglas, "Shahrazad Feminist"; Sallis). By their account, Shahrazad is a feminist pioneer who challenges the foundations of patriarchal society by assuming a powerful position, from which she manipulates the king and saves her sisters. Eva Sallis, for example, criticizes Western "misreadings" of the frame tale, whereby Shahrazad, treated as an exceptional woman, "ceases to be the champion of her sex as a whole on this battleground" (100); this is in contrast to all versions of the Arabic text, where "she is the true champion of women" (100-101). Yet, as Afsaneh Najmabadi observes, Shahrazad "seems an unsuitable character for feminist recuperation" (157), because her response to the accusation of inherent female treachery is only to refine Shahrayar's view of femininity: true, some women flout sexual patriarchal mores (and their punishment is justified), but there are other women, like Shahrazad herself, who are faithful and virtuous, and these women are not to be feared. In other words, Shahrazad's role is simply to appease the male psyche. Therefore, as Najmabadi puts it, the "reassuring ending becomes reassuring in a different sense: the only safe woman for a man to marry is the complicit woman. ....