Feedback Focus

These different approaches to reading were helpful and made me focus more intensely than I do when I just read through without any additions to assist with comprehension. I liked the reading aloud even though it took much longer than I usually take when reading in my head, I think it really does help not to miss important details. I also liked the copy and delete option because when I write notes as I read it helps me to pay attention and it also serves to have an outline for comments ready that you can build on.

(Focus)

I was not as much of a fan of the timer option. I found myself having read through it several times before the time was up and it was a struggle to keep reading the same thing for that long when I was ready to move on to the commenting part. I typically take notes when I read so the copy and delete option is something I am familiar with. In the future I would employ the reading out loud option perhaps if I was having trouble understanding a passage or trouble with coming up with something to comment.

Week 4 Storytelling: The Sisters Who Became Heroes

There once lived a Sultan named Schahriar who had a beautiful wife named Sahrita. The Sultan was a man of great strength with all the nation’s power at his fingertips, but he one weakness and that was his wife. Sahrita knew the Sultan adored her and she used it to her advantage to get whatever her heart desired; she had the finest dresses and jewels in all the land. She also had the finest men that she kept on the side for when the Sultan was away on business, but Schahriar was so in love with her that he never caught onto her adulterous ways. Until one day when he came home from a trip early and found her together with one of the younger men who worked in the palace, in a fit of rage and heartbreak he stabbed the man and strangled his wife. 

Ever since that day the Sultan was never the same, everyone knew how much he loved Sahrita and her betrayal caused him to go insane. He had no one to check his power so whatever rash rules Schahriar instituted became law and no one had the right to question (that is if they wanted to keep their head.) Schahriar became convinced that the entire female gender was evil and that it needed to be eradicated, but he was sensible enough to understand that killing off all of the women would result in the ending of his people. So instead he came up with a horrific punishment that he thought was fitting to pay for the pain he had endured. He wanted others to suffer the way he had and still did.

(Palace)

The Sultan issued that every day he would pick whoever he liked as his new bride and they would have the perfect day, but he would have them strangled the next morning before they could betray him or wrong him in any way. He believed that this way he would only experience the good and the woman he married would not even have time to show her bad side. His grand-vizir, Shoma, was the one the Sultan sanctioned to perform all the killings, even though he thought this law was as crazy and terrible as everyone else. What made it especially terrible to Shoma was that he had two daughters, Scheherazade and Dinarzade, who the Sultan could choose at any time and then Shoma would be the one who would have to execute his own flesh and blood. Shoma warned his daughters every day to stay inside and keep themselves hidden from the Sultan so that their lives might be spared another day.

(Scheherazade, Dinarzade, and the Sultan)

Scheherazade and Dinarzade had different plans than their father, they were not content to sit back and watch the daughters of their country being murdered one by one. So they devised a plan. Scheherazade had always enraptured her friends with her storytelling, her details and imagery made you feel like you were on a great journey every time she sat down to tell a tale. They approached their father and told him their idea to present the Scheherazade to the Sultan as his next bride; of course he was adamantly against the idea but the girls’ minds were made up and Shoma knew it was only a matter of time until the Sultan chose them anyway.

The Sultan was shocked to see his grand-vizir’s daughters before him, but they were both so beautiful, he was intrigued to listen to what they had come to say. Scheherazade offered herself up and told the Sultan she would be honored to be next bride, she only requested that her sister stay with her on her last night on earth. The Sultan accepted this offer, thinking that he would just take Dinarzade once he had killed Scheherazade the next day.

As the sun was setting and the day was coming to a close the girls began to put their plan into motion. Dinarzade begged her sister to tell her a story before they went to sleep. When Scheherazade began the Sultan was not paying her much attention, but without even realizing it he became completely captivated and two hours passed in what seemed like 5 minutes. Scheherazade told her sister it was time to get some rest, but the Sultan insisted she keep going. She told him they would have plenty of time to finish it tomorrow. And this is how Scheherazade was able to save her own life and the lives of all the other young women in her country. The Sultan fell in love with her and his hard heart was softened. He did away with his awful law and Dinarzade was granted a position in the palace for her faithful work to abolish the law.

Author's Note:

In the original story there in not any background on the Sultan and his first wife, so I tried to provide a glimpse of how in love they were and some explanation as to why he went so crazy when he found out she had betrayed him. I also wanted to give more of a dual role to the sisters in saving the country as opposed to just Scheherazade because in the story she is the favorite of her father but Dinarzade is neglected, even though she does a play a part in the original story by going with her sister to the Sultan's room like in my story. They both were brave and I wanted them both to be recognized for it. I also added the part of Scheherazade and the Sultan falling in love...because who doesn't love a happy ending?

Bibliography:

Arabian Nights: Scheherazade by Andrew Lang 

Reading Notes: Arabian Nights, Part B

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 1:
-Aladdin did not want to be a tailor like his father
-he fell in with the wrong crowd and did not find any job at all
-maybe make it where both his parents are dead so that when this magician comes who claims that he is Aladdin's uncle, he jumps at the chance to have a family again
-once the magician tricked Aladdin and left him in the cave to die, he realized that it was not his uncle and that he had been taken advantage of
-when the genie comes out of the ring, Aladdin is so relieved that he can escape the cave he can think of nothing else

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 2:
-Aladdin used the genie to provide him with riches and food like he had never known as the son of a poor tailor
-the sultan's daughter, the princess, was out walking one day with her guards and as soon as Aladdin saw her he fell desperately in love with her
-he wanted the chance to win her heart without the genie's help but the grand vizir went behind his back and married his son to the princess when he caught word of Aladdin's intentions
-Aladdin took out his revenge on the grand vizir's son by kicking him out on his wedding night and spending it with the princess

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 3:
-the grand vizir's son was afraid of the magic Aladdin seemed to possess so he left the princess
-Aladdin gave the princess some time and then he started to woo the princess again and approached the sultan to ask for her hand in marriage
-the sultan made all kinds of ridiculous demands and Aladdin was able to deliver on every single one of them thanks to the help of his genies
-the princess, the sultan, and the people loved him because of his wealth and his charm - however they did not know it was all deception
-the grand vizir was still bitter because of what Aladdin did to his son, and he was determined to ruin Aladdin

(The Palace)

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 4:
-Aladdin's wealth and fame spread throughout the world and the magician who abandoned him in the cave knew that the source had to be the lamp
-he travelled all across the world to find Aladdin and steal back the lamp
-the magician waited until Aladdin was out of the palace and went to steal the lamp, with the stealing of the lamp the palace disappeared as did the princess

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 5:
-Aladdin goes to Africa to rescue his wife and find his palace
-together Aladdin and the princess devise a plan - the princess will pretend to seduce the magician and poison his drink

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp 6:
-the magician is dead and the palace restored back to China with the princess in it
-the evil magician's brother came to avenge his brother's death
-he found his friend Fatima, a well known holy woman, who agreed to let him imitate her but she did not know that to ensure her silence he was going to kill her
-the false Fatima was desired by the princess, to be her personal companion
-the faithful genie knew by the request for the roc's egg that the request had come from the evil brother and that Aladdin and the princess were in danger
-Aladdin invited the evil brother to dinner and as he welcomed him in Aladdin plunged a dagger into his heart

Bibliography:

Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang

Reading Notes: Arabian Nights, Part A

Scheherazade:
-go into more detail about how the sultan's first wife betrayed/deceived him
-he at first ordered all women in the land to be killed ...but shortly his grand vizir reminded him that their people would die off with no women to produce children
-so he settled on marrying a new woman and killing her the next day to quench his need to revenge
-the grand vizir thought the sultan might just end this horrific policy when he offered his own daughter because of how faithful he had been in all his time with the sultan but that was not the case
-Dinarzade saw helping her sister as a chance to liberate all the women who lived in fear of becoming the sultan's next wife
-Dinarzade also wanted to prove to her father that she was worth something because he had always favored Scheherazade over her

(Sheherazade by George Barbier)

The Merchant and the Genius:
-Scheherazade and Dinarzade continue in their plot to save Scheherazade's life
-each story she tells she adds a cliffhanger so that the sultan is curious as to the ending and won't kill her
-her father has more anxiety the longer this is drawn out and the longer his two daughters remain in the chamber of a murderer
-the sisters contrive stories each day and then at night time they are told to the sultan with the dramatic flair that Scheherazade gives that draws the sultan in
-they eventually convince him into recanting his order for a new bride because he falls in love with Scheherazade and also because she foretells of the peril that will fall upon him if he continues and he believes her

Bibliography:

Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang