Script

Introductions

Overview of retellings

• Mackenzie: 1001 Rabbit Tales
• Michael: Alladin
• Shannon: Sinbad
• Julia: Aladdin and The King of Thieves

Discussion of archetypes

Mackenzie’s analysis

Michael’s analysis

Shannon’s analysis:

 

Archetypes

 

Mackenzie:

In the story of 1001 nights, Shahrazad is definitely a hero archetype. She realizes all the horrible things that are happening to all the women around her and she knows someone needs to put an end to it. Shahrazad comes up with a plan that her sister, Dunyazad, is also in on. The plan is that before Shahrazad lies with the king she will ask to see her sister and then her sister will stay in the room while the king does what he want with Shaharzad. Usually it is a cycle that the king will have his way with a woman and then kill her after. However, since Shaharazad and her sister have developed a plan, her sister asks if Shaharazad can tell her a story. Thankfully the king allows this and Shahrazad goes on to tell 1001 stories over 1001 nights. Every night the king is so intrigued in the story and can’t wait to hear the next part of it so he continues to spare her life. Shahrazad is insanely brave! She has risked her life in order to help women all around. Even though her dad begged her to not do this she refused because she knew it needed to be done 1 .

 

Michael:

I chose to analyze the jinni in 1001 Nights. In Jane Garry’s “Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature a Handbook,” jinni are described1“shape-shifters, thought as supernatural creatures with bodies of flame, often traveling about as whirlwinds” The jinn acts as a villain archetype through capturing the woman and forcing her to sleep with the men. This archetype blends weaponizing sexuality for evil.

 

Archetype Citation:

 

1: Garry, Jane, and Hasan M El-Shamy. Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: a Handbook, Routledge, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uoregon/detail.action?docID=302402.

 

Shannon:

 

1001 Arabian nights displays a trickster archetype. More specifically, a protagonist within the story, Shaharazad is displayed as the trickster. This is because she is cunning and uses her intelligence to get what she wants and achieve her own motivations. For this reasoning, Shaharazad reminds me of puss in boots. However, Shaharazad has more of a moral conscience and plays more upon the hero archetype, which mackenzie touched on earlier. The trickster archetype is something I find interesting because it can vary greatly depending on the morality and conscience of the trickster. Therefore, that’s why I see a difference between the Puss in Boots trickster and the 1001 Arabian Nights trickster.

 

“The trickster is an alchemist, a magician, creating realities in the duality of time and illusion. In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior.”

 

In “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor,” the main protagonist, Sinbad, portrays a variety of archetypes. For instance, the rags to riches archetype. Although Sinbad came from a wealthy family, he foolishly spent his riches in his youth. Therefore, he sets sail as a merchant sailor to reclaim his wealth and rise from an underdog status, another archetype he portrays. Yet, in addition to the rags to riches and underdog archetypes that Sinbad portrays, he also portrays a hero archetype because in his voyages and adventures he also maintains a sense of morality by helping other along the way. Therefore, the story of Sinbad also adheres to a hero archetype. Sinbad is also a very wise and cunning entrepreneur in a way. Therefore, I found myself relating his character to Puss in Boots, although Sinbad is a much more moral protagonist, he does find a way to achieve wealth in a cunning way. I like to call Sinbad’s actions to achieve wealth entrepreneurial in spirit because he’s using his wits and his intelligence to rise in wealth. Sinbad does this through trading items and belongings for items and belongings of more value.

 

Nights, Arabian. “The Story of Sindbad the Sailor.” Short Stories and Classic Literature, 5AD, americanliterature.com/author/arabian-nights/short-story/the-story-of-sindbad-the-sailor.

Julia’s analysis

 

Julia:

• The story 1001 Nights contains a hero archetype and a journey archetype.  
• There is also a lot of symbolism about women in the overall frame story of Shahrazad.  
• This book was written in a time where women didn’t have any rights, especially in a culture where women were not deemed important
• Yet the main protagonist and hero of the story is a woman who is tasked with saving the kingdom and lives of other woman
• Poem about how women use sex as a way to power and getting what they want
• Symbolizes the position women were in and still are today
• Importance of storytelling is shown in which Shahrazad literally uses storytelling to save her life

 

Individual Analyses:

 

Mackenzie:

The retelling story I am analyzing is Bug’s Bunny 1001 Rabbit Tales. This is a movie that includes all of the Bug’s Bunny characters in a way to create a sattire movie of the Arabian Nights collection. In this retelling, Daffy Duck and Bug’s Bunny both are assigned to sell books in different areas. I compared this part of the movie to the two brothers that ruled different kingdoms. Throughout Bug’s and Daffy’s encounters they both end up back together and fall into a kingdom of Arabian culture, just like how the brothers come back together. Bug’s Bunny goes to the kingdom and asks the king, who is Yosemite Sam wearing a turban, if he would like to buy this book that has 1001 children’s stories. Yosemite Sam is ecstatic because he needs someone to read to his son, the prince of the kingdom. Bug’s initially refuses and is then threatened to be thrown into boiling oil if he does not read these stories. Bug’s is playing the role of Shaharzad since he is reading the stories but he definitely is not a hero like she is. He is only reading these stories to the prince because the only other option is death. This is similar to Shaharzad but she was clever enough to think of a plan to put an end to all of the deaths the king was causing. Bug’s only motive to do this is to save his own life which makes him just like any other human being.

The movies continues and Bug’s reads a handful of classic fairytales to the prince. These fairytales include: Jack and the beanstock, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and Goldilocks. Similar to Arabian nights, the stories that are being told are folktales. However, the difference in the stories in the Rabit tales compared to the Arabian Nights is that the stories all have an end and then the next one begins. In Arabian Nights, Shaharzad has to make sure each story ends on a cliffhanger to make sure the king wants to keep her around in order to hear the rest of the story.

Thankfully, since this is a children’s movie, there is no acknowledgement of rape or murder. I do think that these two components of Arabian Nights are what make it such famous collection because there is lots, in a sense, drama. Instead, the Bug’s Bunny version has them just try to sell books and then they are roped into a bad situation but Shaharzad puts herself in this bad situation in order to help the women being killed. There definitely is a big gap between these two stories because there is no rape and murder which I think is a key component to the Arabian nights collection. Without these two components there really wouldn’t be a story2.

 

Michael:

My retelling of a story from 1001 Night was the story of Aladdin. The original story of Aladdin, which is called Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,  is actually not included in the original version of the collection of stories. It is said that the story was added to the 18th century French translation by Antoine Galland, who heard it from a Syrian in an Aleppo.1

For our generation, Aladdin is one of the most well known retellings of 1001 Nights. The story focuses on Aladdin, a street boy from the fictional town of Agrabah who falls in love with the beautiful princess Jasmine. As a princess, Jasmine is supposed to marry a Royal Prince, but she is charmed by Aladdin. Here’s the synopsis from IMDB.2

The movie Aladdin starts with a street peddler telling us the tale of Jafar, the Sultan’s vizier meeting with a mysterious thief figure named Kassim. The two combine their parts of a golden beetle. When they put their pieces together, a cave called the “Cave of Wonders” emerges. Jafar orders Kassim to enter, and the cave closes on Kassim, leaving Jaffar to realize that he needs “the diamond in the rough” to enter.

The next day, we are introduced to Aladdin a street boy who is just trying to get by using his wits to steal from others. Aladdin is accompanied by his sidekick monkey Abu. Princess Jasmine, the daughter of the Sultan, escapes from her palace after rejecting an advance from the Royal Prince and eventually crosses paths with Aladdin. The royal guards eventually find Aladdin and kidnap him under Jafar’s orders. When she goes looking for Aladdin, Jafar tells her that he has been killed because he kidnapped her. The truth is that Aladdin has not been killed, he was imprisoned by Jafar. Abu helps Aladdin to escape, and they encounter another prisoner who needs help to locate the Cave of Wonders. The prisoner is actually Jafar.

Aladdin, Abu and Jafar get to the cave and only Aladdin and Abu can enter. They are told that they can’t touch anything but the lamp. They are guided to the location of the lamp by a magic carpet, but Aladdin steals a ruby and the cave collapses.

Aladdin rubs the lamp and is told that he has three wishes, but he can’t do the following things: he can’t wish for more wishes, he can’t kill anyone, he can’t make anyone fall in love with someone else and he can’t bring people back from the dead. Aladdin tricks the genie into letting him escape the cave without using a wish. After escaping, Aladdin asks the genie what else he should wish for. The genie tells him that his only wish is to be free, and Aladdin makes the promise to free him for the lamp after he uses two wishes. Aladdin uses one of his wishes to become a prince because Jasmine is a princess.

Back in the city, Jafar, who desperately wants to gain power,  tries to convince the Sultan that he can marry the princess if she is not married by a certain time. Jafar is basically really good at manipulation and tries to manipulate the king with different techniques like hypnosis.

Aladdin returns to the city, and the Sultan, Jasmine and Jafar are unaware that it is Aladdin. Jasmine is unimpressed by the prince, and Aladdin eventually reveals his identity and charms her with a magic carpet ride.

Aladdin returns to the palace with Jasmine and then he is seized by guards. The guards throw him in a lake and Aladdin accidentally rubs the lamp, which causes the genie to emerge. The genie convinces Aladdin to save his own life and he returns to the palace. He finds Jafar manipulating the Sultan through hypnosis using his staff and then Aladdin destroys the staff and Jafar escapes. The Sultan sees that Jasmine wants to marry Aladdin. Now that Aladdin has used two wishes, the Genie is ready to be freed. The genie tries to convince Aladdin to free him but he’s not ready.

Jaffar, who somehow stole the lamp from Aladdin, summons the genie and makes him carry out his orders. Jaffar takes the palace to a remote mountain and uses his first wish to become a powerful wizard. He reveals to everyone that Aladdin is a poor boy and then uses his second wish to become sultan, he imprisons the sultan and Jasmine until she agrees to marry him.

Aladdin somehow finds the magic carpet again and sneaks into the palace. Aladdin again uses his wits and convinces Jafar to use his third wish to turn into the genie, due to how powerful the genie is. However, the genie is bound to obey whoever is in possession of the lamp (Jafar doesn’t know this). So then Jafar turns himself into the genie and is trapped by the lamp.

Genie and Aladdin get rid of the lamp and the genie reminds Aladdin that he still has his third wish. Genie tells Aladdin he can become a prince, but he uses his wish to free the Genie like he promised. Aladdin goes back to the city and the sultan allows him to marry his daughter and he becomes an heir to the kingdom.

While the film appears to be a fun, child friendly story, some have criticized it for portraying Orientalist stereotypes. According to the Oxford English Dictionary3, orientalism is defined as “The representation of the Orient (esp. the Middle East) in Western academic writing, art, or literature; spec. this representation perceived as stereotyped or exoticizing and therefore embodying a colonialistic attitude.” One critic, Jack Shaheen who was a professor of mass communication at the time, said in 1992 that Aladdin was “a painful reminder to 3 million Americans of Arab heritage, as well as 300 million Arabs and others, that the abhorrent Arab stereotype is as ubiquitous as Aladdin’s lamp.”4

The American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee5 criticized the movie for its portrayal of Jasmine and Aladdin with lighter skin colors and that the villains/common people have darker skin. There were also issues with the first song of Aladdin, in which the first verse6 said:

 

“From a faraway place

 

Where the caravan camels roam.

Where they cut off your ear

If they don’t like your face

It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

I think it is also important to note that Jasmine is different from many other Disney characters. Her outfits are much more revealing than other princesses and I think that this was a deliberate decision by the creators of the film.

Although I enjoyed the film as a kid, I realize that there are mainly problematic elements with its themes. As consumers of media, we need to be vigilant about what types of media we’re watching.

Close reading/analysis citations:

1: https://ajammc.com/2017/08/10/who-was-the-real-aladdin/

2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/plotsummary#synopsis

3: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/132531?redirectedFrom=orientalism#eid

4: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170714-the-aladdin-controversy-disney-cant-escape

5: https://web.archive.org/web/20070405005650/http:/www.adc.org/index.php?id=283

6: http://articles.latimes.com/1993-07-10/entertainment/ca-11747_1_altered-lyric

 

Shannon:

In “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor,” the main protagonist, Sinbad, portrays a variety of archetypes. For instance, the rags to riches archetype. Although Sinbad came from a wealthy family, he foolishly spent his riches in his youth. Therefore, he sets sail as a merchant sailor to reclaim his wealth and rise from an underdog status, another archetype he portrays. Yet, in addition to the rags to riches and underdog archetypes that Sinbad portrays, he also portrays a hero archetype because in his voyages and adventures he also maintains a sense of morality by helping other along the way. Therefore, the story of Sinbad also adheres to a hero archetype. Sinbad is also a very wise and cunning entrepreneur in a way. Therefore, I found myself relating his character to Puss in Boots, although Sinbad is a much more moral protagonist, he does find a way to achieve wealth in a cunning way. I like to call Sinbad’s actions to achieve wealth entrepreneurial in spirit because he’s using his wits and his intelligence to rise in wealth. Sinbad does this through trading items and belongings for items and belongings of more value.

 

For my retelling, I chose “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor.” This story follows the protagonist of Sinbad. Sinbad comes from a wealthy family, although due to poor financial choices, he loses his wealth and must fend for himself. Therefore, he becomes a merchant sailor and sets out to sea to fulfill his motives of gaining wealth. While at sea, his ship becomes shipwrecked on an island. The island turns out to be a whale, and Sinbad must float to a nearby island. While on the island, his hero side comes to lights when he helps a horse groom save a mare from drowning. This man turns out to be a servant of the King of the island.

 

Sinbad soon meets the King, who graciously thanks him for helping his servant. The King then awards Sinbad with a treasure chest of valuables. Sinbad then trades the items in the chest for more valuable items, thus greatly increasing his wealth. This was Sinbad’s first voyage. Sinbad soon goes on another voyage. While reading the story of Sinbad, it becomes evident that Sinbad’s voyages and the plot of “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor” have a very repetitive plot. For instance, after Sinbad’s second voyage, he increases his wealth with the same actions as he did on his last voyage. Therefore, he again trades valuable items for items that are of more value, hence increasing his wealth in an entrepreneurial like way.

 

Sinbad goes on many voyages. Throughout Sinbad’s voyages, the consistently story portrays many staples that are common in fairytales. For instance, there’s the existence of a monster or vicious animal (i.e., a sea monster, a huge snake, etc.), a hero that saves someone in need (i.e., the mare and the horse groom), a hero being rewarded by an authority figure (i.e., the King).

 

Nights, Arabian. “The Story of Sindbad the Sailor.” Short Stories and Classic Literature, 5AD, americanliterature.com/author/arabian-nights/short-story/the-story-of-sindbad-the-sailor.

 

Footnotes

1. “10 Common Character Archetypes.” n.d. The Writer’s Spot. Accessed May 8, 2018. http://thewriterspot.weebly.com/13/post/2014/08/common-character-archetypes.html.

 

1.  Dunn, John W. ,Detiege, David, Bug’s Bunny 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, Movie, directed/performed by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng (1982).

 

1. Nights, Arabian. “The Story of Sindbad the Sailor.” Short Stories and Classic Literature, 5AD, americanliterature.com/author/arabian-nights/short-story/the-story-of-sindbad-the-sailor.

 

Julia’s Analysis:

I decided to analyze a modern day reteling of ali baba and the forty thieves

Ali baba and the forty theives is one of the most popular stories from arbian nights and is most commonly used as a childrens story today.

 

The film Aladdin and the King of Thieves is a sequel to the disney movie aladdin and a modern retelling of the story ali baba and the forty thieves

 

In the original story archtypes include a hero, ali baba, a mentor, morgiana, a villian, the theives and the leader and a storyline of maturtity

 

An overview of the story: 2 brothers, one greedier than the other marries a rich woman and the other works hard to support himself and his wife. One day he sees a band of thieves open a MAGIC cave full of treasure with a secret phrase.  Once they leave he carefully and discretely takes gold out of it only telling his wife of the cave. Ali baba asks his sister in law for a scale to weigh their new gold but she secretly put wax on the scale to find out what they were using it for. She realizes they have all this new gold and ali babas brother pressures him to telling him his secret which he does.  Cassim as greedy as he is goes to the cave takes as much as he can but forgets the phrase that unlocks the cave, gets trapped in side and gets killed by the theives. Ali baba goes back to find his brother and finds cassims body chopped up. Ali baba takes his body in order to have mogiana, cassims slave, find a way to sew the body up which she finds a tailor for. Once the theives realize the body is gone, they also realize someone else knows about the cave and devise plans to capture the invidicidual. Morgiana thwarts these plans over and over

 

In the movie cassim, alibabas greedy father is replaced by the character of aladdins father who acts in the same sense, a character that is greedy, in the movie the object of his desire is the hand that can turn anything into gold

but in the end he decides his true treasure in life is his son

 

Much child friendlier than the original

In the original its hard to tell if ali baba is really a good guy , in this movie ali baba is aladdin a familiar and loved character.

 

The most common retellings we see are ones that are “G” rated versions of the original

 

Morgiana’s role is the most interesting one to examine in this story. Socially, Morgiana is effectively invisible – she is not only a slave but also a woman. Women in these stories often cause messes through their foolishness; Morgiana, however, is the stark opposite. In fact, she is story’s true hero, not only because of her cleverness but also because of her loyalty. She is strong, resourceful, and calm in the face of danger, performing all the clever feats we would expect a male hero to.

 

Much like many fairy tales weve read so far, ali baba and the forty thieves offers a great example  whereby a poor man rises to riches by means of a lucky break

Ali Baba is in the right place at the right time to learn the thieves’ secret, this supports the idea that even the poorest of men can come across good fortune. Of course, the story then suggests that one must capitalize on that good fortune through vigilance and cleverness.

 

Ali Baba is rewarded with prosperity and happiness for doing exactly what made the captain and the forty thieves reprehensible in the first place: stealing. Ali Baba consistently steals from the cave, and allows the greed of others to threaten his safety. At first, the story suggests he will suffer because of greed – but then cleverness saves the day.

 

An interesting parallel can be drawn between Ali Baba and the robber captain; are they really that different? In this story, the line between hero and villain can become blurred if you look closely enough, or unless you realize you ought to be looking not at the male namesake but at the slave girl in the background.

This is strange to see especially at this time.  

 

Footnotes:

1. “Aladdin and the King of Thieves.” Disney Wiki. Accessed May 11, 2018. http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Aladdin_and_the_King_of_Thieves.
2. Nights, Arabian. “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” Short Stories and Classic Literature. Accessed May 11, 2018. https://americanliterature.com/author/arabian-nights/short-story/ali-baba-and-the-forty-thieves.

 

Music citations:

 

Freesound.org: arab-group-1.wav – xserra