Week 5 Storytelling: The Genie's Lament

A sudden rattling woke me from my deep slumber. The walls that entrapped me began to shake violently, and I could feel the vessel that I was in begin to be pulled upwards by a strong force. After a while of this, a bright white light flooded my eyes. I was shocked at first, but then I realized that I had more room to spread out for the first time in centuries. Seizing my opportunity, I exploded out of the vase that had held me captive for so long.

I should probably introduce myself at this point. I am a lowly genie who made a critical mistake about three hundred years ago: I disobeyed the king of the genii. I was young and immature, and I didn't know any better. However, he decided to punish me by sealing me into a vase and enchanting it so that I would be trapped until someone freed me. Each day was torture as I did not know how long it would be until I saw my family again, how long I would be cooped up. I held out hope though--I told myself that if anyone freed me before the first century was over, I would bless him and his family with riches beyond belief. I was still faithful that I would be rescued during my second century of captivity. But after that passed and still nobody had released me, I vowed that I would immediately kill the person who set me free.

The vase that held me captive. Source: deviantArt.

When I had escaped the vase completely and taken my true form, I examined my surroundings. Looking down, I saw a feeble fisherman. So, this was my savior, I guess. I scrutinized him, taking in his dirty, ragged clothes and his emaciated appearance. He didn't look like he'd put up much of a fight. He spoke to me as if he were expecting a reward; bitterly, I demanded that he show me more respect before I killed him.

This certainly caught him off guard. He hastily asked, "Why must you kill me?"

Wearily, I explained my entire story. I told him of my former king and his unjust punishment, and the thoughts that raced through my head during the entirety of my imprisonment. The fisherman just looked at me incredulously throughout my account. "But you are so large!" he said. "How did you fit into that tiny vase?"

My pride took over here, and I wanted to show this lowly human my powers. I turned myself into wisps of smoke and fitted myself easily once again inside the vase. Suddenly, I heard a loud clank. I looked up and realized that the man had replaced the lid, closing me in again. No matter how hard I tried, I could not push past the enchantment.

I cried out of frustration: how could I have been so stupid? Oh well. I guess I'll just have to wait for another liberator to come along. Maybe this time I'll be a little more reasonable.

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Author's note: I chose to retell the Story of the Fisherman from the Arabian Nights unit. In this account, I stuck to the original fairly closely, except for the fact that I changed the point of view from third-person omniscient to that of the genie. This story jumped out at me because of the fisherman's cunning, and I also wanted to tell it from the perspective of the bitter genie so that the reader could get more insight into his feelings. In the original story, the genie is shown as a wholly harsh, unfeeling being with no reason or logic behind his actions, and I wanted to change that a little and give him at least an inkling of compassion. I tried to do this by injecting a bit of remorse at the end when he is captured again. Of course, this story continues as the fisherman teaches the genie a lesson through another tale in this frametale, but I had to find a way to end this particular account.

Bibliography:
The Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Andrew Lang, illustrated by H.J. Ford
(1898)
Source: Project Gutenberg

Week 5 Essay: Genies in "Arabian Nights"

This week, I read Arabian Nights, also known as Scheherazade, named after the protagonist and storyteller of the frametale. Throughout the unit, there were many mentions of different beings like genies, but not in the sense to which the general public is accustomed. There clearly have been some recounts of the original stories found in this unit where details have been changed, and it was interesting to see the mindset of the culture and how it influenced the original and compare it to the retelling, fit for Western societies.

In the first half of the unit, two different genies appear. Rather than being the obligingly grateful beings they have been portrayed in media, however, they are bitter about being trapped in their prisons in the first place and seem incongruously unreasonable when they are first freed, even going so far as to inform their liberators that they (the genies) must kill them. Obviously, the rescuers are confused and taken aback at this--did they not just save the genies from a torturous imprisonment? The genies carry none of this logic, however: they remain angry and hold on to their grudges. This is certainly a far cry from, for example, Disney's Aladdin, where the Genie is a friend and is more willing to help than harm.

Moreover, whereas the Genie in Aladdin is joyful and witty, the genies in this frametale each seem not to have much of a personality at all. They are cold and calculating and apparently do not think before they act. In the tale of the fisherman and the genie, the old man tricks the genie with ease: he asks how such a great monster could come from such a small vase, and the genie unwittingly turns himself into a cloud of smoke and fits himself back into his vessel long enough for the fisherman to trap him again. Clearly, there was not much thought behind this behavior.

It was intriguing to see the influences of culture on these stories. Literature certainly does not exist in a vacuum; this folklore was shaped by the type of government of the day, the customs and traditions, and more. This unit was a look into a rich history of the East and provided valuable insight into the differences between our culture and theirs.

A genie freed from his lamp. Source: Press Release Distribution.

Week 5 Reading Diary: Arabian Nights

This week, I read Arabian Nights, which is a frametale, or a collection of stories that Scheherazade tells to her husband, Sultan Schahriar. These are not just any stories, however: it is a matter of life or death that the Sultana keeps her husband entertained, as the reader sees in the introduction, Scheherazade.

As I read the first story in the unit, The Merchant and the Genius, I was struck by how similar the merchant's and Scheherazade's fates were. They both are facing the threat of death, and they both use the guise of telling stories to put off death a little longer--indeed, Scheherazade frames the stories so that she may continue to do this.

The interesting thing about the frametale is how detailed Scheherazade makes it. In the Hind, the narrator of the story within the story, the first old man, addresses the genie (and this is a running theme throughout, between both the old men and the genie and Scheherazade and the Sultan). It is interesting to see the genie's reaction to the tales and I imagine it is comparable to the Sultan's reaction to the stories.

In the Story of the Fisherman, Scheherazade continues this "story-within-a-story" way of telling her tales, and invents a wily fisherman. No doubt the Sultana is very clever and can dream up a cunning fisherman, as she herself is very witty. At the end of the story, she weaves another level into the storytelling: the fisherman explains to the genie that he cannot trust him and release him from the vase in which he has sealed him once again because he might meet the same fate as a Greek physician--then continues to tell that tale, effectively adding more depth to this frametale. It is interesting to me that Scheherazade is telling these stories to save her life, and previous protagonists in her stories have told their tales to save either their own lives or someone else's, but now the fisherman is simply giving the genie this account to teach him a lesson.

In the story about the Greek King and the Physician Douban, the frametale gets even deeper. As always, Scheherazade is telling the outermost story to the Sultan about the fisherman, who is in turn telling the genie the story about the king and the physician. In this story, the king's vizir becomes jealous of the physician and approaches the king, where the king tells him another story. As I read, I found it a little difficult to keep track of what level the stories were at, but it was like a fun puzzle to backtrack and figure it out.

The last story in this unit was a long one, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. This tale was an interesting change to the normal story of Aladdin that Disney told. It eliminated (or rather, the Disney version added) the animal sidekicks, and it the original also involved two genies instead of one and a different story line in terms of Aladdin's relationship with the princess. In this tale, there is no forbidden love between street urchin and princess; Aladdin easily wins over the woman's (and her father's) heart with jewels and gold. However, the conflict arises with the evil magician, just as in the Disney movie. Here is where the plots converge: the magician wants control of the genie in the lamp, and Aladdin takes ownership instead, so the villain gets envious. He cunningly tricks the sultana out of Aladdin's old lamp and unfortunately, she innocently gives it to him. However, Aladdin and his wife are wily as well, and devise a way to kill the magician and take the lamp back.
It is here where the story diverges again. It turns out that the magician has an equally evil brother, and he causes the couple grief when he hears about the death of his brother. Luckily, the genie in the ring sees through his tricks and warns Aladdin, and he is able to get rid of the evil for good. Aladdin and the sultana take over the kingdom after her father dies and they live happily ever after.