Week 5: Names in Arabian Nights (Essay)

First I would like to say, I really enjoyed the Arabian Nights reading unit. I thought the stories were cleverly told and interwoven, as well as fun to read. I am very glad I chose this unit for week 5.

Throughout the Arabian Nights stories and the other fairy tales I have read, many characters are never named. They are simply known by their occupation or role in the story. But even fewer of the named character's are women. The main exceptions to this are, of course, Scheherazade and her sister, Dinarzade. However, in the main stories, the women are all known in terms of 'the wife', 'the enchantress', 'the fairy', or 'the princess.'

While this is not always a bad thing, there were some female characters in this unit I would have liked to be named. I understand that when most of these stories were written, they were made by men for children. They wanted them to focus on the lessons and morals of the tales. In that way, I think it's fine for the stories to not name characters. When no characters are named, it makes it almost more mystical. What I don't like is when they name the main male character, but not the main female character, who has an equally large part in the story.

The main story I'm talking about for this unit is Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. In the story, the princess who Aladdin marries is central to many major plot points and is the constant motivation for all of Aladdin's actions after the second part of the story. Yet she is only called 'the princess' or 'Aladdin's wife' or 'the Sultan's Daughter'.

I will admit, after seeing she didn't receive a name in the story, I mentally assigned 'Jasmine' to her to keep in line with my Disney roots involved with this story. However, I would have liked to see the princess be officially named in the story.

As I said, I understood not naming many of the characters in the smaller stories, but I feel like the princess in the Aladdin story was very important. And in such a long story, it would have actually been easier to name her than to continuously refer to her in terms of other people or her title.

Still, I liked reading the story quite a lot, and am very glad I read the unit. This really is a small detail that shouldn't matter much. However, it was something that bugged me throughout the Aladdin story that I felt like I should mention.

By Walter Crane. Princess in Aladdin