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The Arabian Nights, also called The Thousand and
One Nights, is a large collection of stories, mostly of
Arabian, Indian, or Persian origin, written in Arabic between the
14th and 16th centuries.
The frame story, Persian in origin, turns on the woman-hating
King Schahriah (Shahryar) who, after his queen's blatant infidelity,
marries a different woman each night and then slays her the next
morning, thus ensuring her faithfulness. The bride Scheherazade
(Shahrazad), however, beguiles the king with a series of stories
for a thousand and one nights, withholding the ending of each story
until the next night. In this way she saves her life.
The elaborately plotted stories, filled with intrigue, are folkloric
in origin. Three of the best known are "The History of Aladdin,
or the Wonderful Lamp," "The History of Sinbad the Sailor," and
"The History of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."
Source: Betts, Jane Colville: Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1995.
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The Arabian Nights, like
Midnight's Children is an example of what might be
called a self-conscious text or a Metafiction:
it is a story about telling a story.
Midnight's Children
contains many metaphors about the process of writing and
reading and the relationship between the reader and the narrator.
The perforated sheet
and the pickle jars are just two examples.
Midnight's Children owes a great deal to the traditions
and myths of Arabic literature of which The Arabian Nights is
an early example.
As in The Arabian Nights, Saleem Sinai is aware that if the reader
loses interest he will cease to exist. As narrator he is almost
paranoid about retaining our interest and credulity through his
fabulous tales. The character Padma who seems to be reading
the text along with us, acts humorously as a metaphor for the
reader who
wants the story to be exciting but believable. Through
her scolding and interventions, she has a role perhaps like that
of King Schahriah, (if not with the same threat of violence) in
shaping the story. Or perhaps it is us, the readers who are the
true Schahriahs - we after all have the power to 'put the narrative
to death' by losing interest and discarding the book!
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