Essay Week 5: Magicians and Genies

This week I read the Arabian Nights unit, which definitely had a magical theme to it. Most of the magic in these stories came from various genies, with the exception of the magician in the Aladdin story. The way the genies originated differed throughout the stories though. Some came from lamps, one came from a ring, and one just appeared out of nowhere in the desert.

In the first half of the reading, the genie was given mostly human-like characteristics. He talked to the travelers and listened to their stories. He even had an aspect of human emotion, as he spared the life of the old man who supposedly killed his son. Further on in the stories, another genie is encountered who grants his master a wish, but the wish is only to choose how he dies. This genie also displayed human emotion. He listened to stories and displayed anger, but in the end made his master rich.

The genies in the Aladdin story used magic for the same reason, to grant wishes. When the genies appeared to Aladdin, they were immediately his masters and subject to whatever he desired. Alternately, the human magician in the Aladdin story used his powers to manipulate people for his own advantage. These genies displayed much less emotion and acted as how most people think of genies, with them just being there to grant wishes.

There were no supernatural beings in the readings. Furthermore, there was not even a mention of the belief of a supernatural being (or beings) even existing. I do believe that the magic in these stories was the dominant element. Most of the characters outcome was dependent on the action of genies, as well as most of the stories being based solely on a character discovering a magical item that contains a genie.  

The genie everyone thinks of!

Web Source: Flickr  (2011).

Storytelling for Week 5: Aladdin and the Lamp

Author's Note:

The story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp is being told to the sultan by his wife, Scheherazade. For years the sultan had married a woman at night, then had her murdered in the morning. This repeated until Scheherazade came along, who tells him a story every morning but ends on a cliff-hanger, prompting the sultan to let her live until the next day to continue the story. I kept most parts of this story the same, except for the competition between the genies. I also added the ending where the sultan makes a promise to his wife, because who doesn't like a happy ending?!

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 1:

Sire, I have yet another story, even more magnificent than my last. May your highness permit me to tell the tale of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp?

“My dearest Scheherazade, your past story was better than your last, which was better than the one before that, and so on. I cannot imagine this story being even greater than the last, but I would love to hear it,” said the Sultan.

Sire, there was once a poor boy, Aladdin, who lived in China. His father was a tailor and his mother worked in the home. One day, Aladdin was playing the street as he normally did when a magician from Africa encountered him. The magician, however, did not reveal his identity and told Aladdin that he was a long-lost uncle. The magician was able to fool Aladdin’s mother as well and began to shower Aladdin with riches unlike anything he had ever seen.

The next day, the magician took Aladdin on a long journey into the desert, where he used his magical powers to make a ring rise from the ground. The magician then instructed Aladdin to grab the ring and walk into the underground cavern that would appear. Once inside, Aladdin is told to be careful to touch nothing except a magical lamp, which he should bring back to his uncle and then be greatly rewarded. In saying this, the magician had no intention of rewarding Aladdin, but being poor, Aladdin jumped at the opportunity.

Once he retrieved the lamp, Aladdin refuses to hand it over until the magician helps him out of the cave. Enraged, the magician closes the cavern and makes haste back to Africa, leaved Aladdin trapped underground.

Aladdin is completely alone, but not without a few material possessions. In his anger, the magician forgot to retrieve the magical ring from Aladdin, who also possesses the magic lamp. While inspecting these two items, a genie appears from the ring and a separate genie appears from the lamp. Realizing that he is now in a good position, Aladdin begins to bargain with the two genies. After getting the genies to argue over which is the more powerful, Aladdin promises to free whatever genie can get him the most happiness in life.

Immediately, the genie of the ring transports Aladdin out of the cave and onto a beautiful island. On this island Aladdin has a marble castle to live in, all the riches he could ever want, and hundreds of servants. Aladdin soon realizes that something is still missing, which prompts the genie of the lamp to transport Aladdin back home, where he would soon find the woman of his dreams.

“Scheherazade, your stories never cease to amaze me. You have proven yourself as a loyal wife and great companion. I no longer want your father to fear for your life, so from this day forth I shall promise to keep you my wife as long as I may live.” After hearing this from the Sultan, Scheherazade continued to tell stories every morning and the sultan kept his promise.

Aladdin being trapped by the magician. 

Bibliography

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 1, from Arabian Nights' Entertainment by Andrew Lang (1898).

Image Info: Illustration by Albert Robida. Web Source: Wikipedia.

Reading Diary Week 5: Arabian Nights

This week I read Arabian Nights, which required a ton of notes to keep all of the layers of the stories straight!

Scheherazade

Sultan Schahriar discovers that the love of his life has been cheating him and then has her put to death. Afterwards he is convinced women are evil and marries a new wife every evening, but then has her killed in the morning. It was the grand-vizir that had the job of bringing the sultan new women each day and one day his daughter suggested that he send her. He reluctantly tells the sultan and informs Scheherazade that she will marry the sultan. Before she goes she has one last wish and tells her sister to wake her up an hour before dawn and tell her to begin telling one of her stories. Her sister does this and the sultan agrees that she should tell a story.

The Merchant and the Genius

Scheherazade begins telling a story about a wealthy merchant. While traveling the merchant encounters a genius (genie) who says he will kill the merchant because the merchant threw a stone and it struck the genies son in the eye and killed him. The genie raises his weapon to kill the man…and Scheherazade stops telling the story to get the sultan’s permission to finish it the next morning. The sultan agrees and the story continues the next day…the merchant begs the genie to let him go and say goodbye to is family, promising to return after 1 year so the genie can kill him. The genie agrees and after a year the merchant returns to the same spot. While he is waiting for the genie he meets 2 old men. The genie appears and right before he is about to kill the merchant, one of the old men interjects and proposes to the genie that he tells a story and if it is a good story then he won’t kill the merchant. The genie agrees.

The First Old Man and of the Hind

The old man begins to tell the genie the story, but Scheherazade is still telling this story to the Sultan every morning and her life keeps being spared one day at a time. So the man begins his story and explains how the deer with him is his wife and they have an adopted son. The old man leaves for a year and asks his wife to watch his mother and child while he is gone. The wife turns his son into a calf and a slave of his into a cow and then when the old man returns she tells him that they have disappeared. For a holiday feast, the wife kills the slave that is now a cow to eat and tries to get his son that is now a calf killed but he couldn’t do it, even though he didn’t know it was his son. The man discovers its his son and gets him changed back to a human and then has the wife changed into the deer that she is now. Now the merchant is talking to the genie again and the other old man with them interjects and offers to tell the genie yet a better story, to which he agrees.

The Story of the Second Old Man, and of the Two Black Dogs

The second old man begins his story (this is still Scheherazade telling these stories to the sultan) and explains how the two black dogs with him are his brothers. All 3 brothers were merchants and two of them decided to go travel, they each came back penniless and the brother who did not travel (the old man telling the genie the story) gave them his money each time. A while later they all decide to travel together and the brother who had not previously traveled got married, but his brothers became jealous and threw him and his wife into the ocean. The wife was a fairy, so she saved her husband and they went to an island. The fairy turned his 2 brothers into dogs for 10 years and after the ten years were almost done they set out to find the fairy and found the old man with the deer for a wife along the way. The genie agrees that these were great stories so he spares the merchants life and leaves them alone. Scheherazade then tells the sultan that as great as her past stories were, none of them compare to another story.

The Story of the Fisherman

Scheherazade begins to tell the sultan about a story of a fisherman. He was very old and poor and was married with a wife and three kids. While fishing, the man catches a pot that is sealed and once he opens it a genie comes out. The genie says the man gets one wish, but it is only to decide the way that the genie will kill him. The genie begins to explain that he rebelled against the king of the genies and was shut in the vase and after 300 years the genie vowed to himself that whoever freed him would die. The fisherman tells the genie that he doesn’t think he can actually fit in the vase, so the genie goes in the vase to prove it but then the man shuts the lid and traps the genie. The man then says he is afraid that if he lets the genie out he will be treated like Douban was by a Greek king, starting another story.

The Greek King and the Physician Douban

The fisherman now starts telling the story of a Greek king that was ill and a physician named Douban came to see him. Douban tells the king to play polo with a club that has medicine on the handle. The king does this and the next morning he is cured. The king gave Douban many riches and the kings grand-vizir grew very jealous of Douban. The king tells the grand-vizir not the be jealous and begins to tell him a story that was told to King Sindbad by his own vizir.

The Husband and the Parrot

The King begins a story about a man with a beautiful wife. Before the husband left to travel he buys a parrot and when he gets back the parrot tells him some bad things the wife had done. The wife then had slaves dump water on the parrot and when the husband came back to ask the parrot what happened, the parrot says it rained a lot the night before. The man knew that it hadn’t rained and killed the parrot for lying. The king then tells his vizir that his is why he will not listen to him and the vizir begins to tell a story to the king about yet another king who had a son that liked to hunt and on each hunting trip the king would have his son take the grand-vizir with him. The boy got lost one day and encountered an ogre who brought him back to her children to eat the boy. The boy escaped and went home and the king had the grand-vizir killed because he did not keep track of the boy.

The Physician’s Revenge

The king who was cured by the physician decides to have Douban killed after hearing these stories and being told by his grand-vizir that Douban is plotting to assassinate him. Douban is killed, but his head is placed on a book like he asked for and he can still talk this way. The king begins to turn the pages and lick his fingers after each page, which each page had poison on. The King then dies and we return to the fisherman and the genie. The genie begs to not be thrown back into the sea and eventually the fisherman lets him out so the genie can reward him for sparing him.

The Sultan and the Fish

The genie takes the fisherman to a magic lake where he catches great fish and is told by the genie to take them to the sultan. The sultan asks to see where these fish came from. Once they are there, the sultan sets off on his own and finds a palace where he finds a man that is half person and half stone. This person then begins a story to the sultan of how he became like this.

King of the Black Isles

It winds up the man used to be a king and after he punished a slave that his wife adored she turned him into the half-statue that he is now. The wife then turned the capital into the lake where the fisherman caught the fish and she comes and beats her husband with a whip every day. The sultan tricks the wife into turning the man back into his former self and also turning the lake back into a kingdom. Everyone ends up happy and the sultan gives the fisherman a lot of wealth.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 1

This starts another one of Scheherazade’s stories to the sultan. A magician encounters a poor boy named Aladdin one day who claims to be his uncle. The magician buys Aladdin all new things and leads him to the desert, where he gives Aladdin a magical ring and sends him into a cave to retrieve a lamp. Aladdin gets the lamp, but refuses to let the magician have it until he is helped out of the cave. Instead of helping him, the magician (who is actually not Aladdin’s uncle) collapses the cave, leaving Aladdin trapped. The magician forgot to take the magic ring though and when Aladdin rubs it a genie comes out.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 2

Aladdin has the genie get them out of the cave and then returns home to his mother. He shows her the lamp and yet another genie comes out of it, prompting Aladdin to wish it for some food. One day, Aladdin sees the princess bathing and immediately wants to marry her. He sends his mother to the sultan with jewels to request the marriage and the sultan agrees, but says to wait three months. After three months the princess marries the son of the sultan’s conspiring grand-vizir. Aladdin learns this and asks the genie of the lamp to bring them both to him. The genie brings a bed with the new couple in it, then kicks the grand-vizir’s son outside and Aladdin spends the night with the princess.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 3

Each night, Aladdin keeps having the genie bring the princess to spend the night with him and eventually the grand-vizir’s son tells the sultan he no longer wants to be married to the princess. After hearing this, Aladdin’s mother goes back to the sultan and reminds him of his promise. The sultan agrees that Aladdin can marry the princess, as long as he comes to the palace with a parade. He wishes the genie for all the things for a parade and the wish gets granted. He then has the genie build a massive palace and marries the princess. After seeing the palace, the grand-vizir warns the sultan that he thinks Aladdin is using some form of enchantment.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 4

The magician who trapped Aladdin in the cave learns that he escaped and is using the magic lamp, so he travels halfway across the world to trick one of the princess’s slaves into giving him the magic lamp. He obtains the lamp and has the palace transported to a far away land. The sultan has Aladdin brought to him and tells Aladdin to either go find the princess or be killed. Aladdin rubs his magic ring and has the genie take him to the palace and princess, which he does.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 5

Aladdin devises a plan and tells the princess to go to the magician and inform him that she has moved on from Aladdin and to feast with the magician. He also gives her something to put in his drink, which she does. The powder was poisonous and the magician dies shortly afterwards.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 6

Aladdin goes to the dead magician and receives his lamp, upon which he has the genie transport them back to their original home. Soon after, we learn that the magician has an evil brother, who has come from far away to trick Aladdin. The magician kills the holy woman of the town and goes into town wearing her clothes. The princess hears that the holy woman has walked into town and tells the princess that the palace needs a Roc egg for decoration. The princess tells this to Aladdin and he then commands the genie. This command infuriates the genie, who tells Aladdin that the holy woman is the magician in disguise. Aladdin then kills the magician and lives happily ever after.