1. How are we to understand Shahrayar’s madness? Does it make sense to you? That is, are male egos in macho societies that frail, or is his a special case?

I do believe Shahravar’s madness is typical of male ego, although certainly with a buffer of time. Men no longer kill women because of their deceit, but men certainly often aim to control a woman, although not as obsessively. Chivalry is old, but not as old as patriarchal society’s, and so in the last century or so men have been able to adequately control women while they still gain independence. Women have been able to vote for less than 100 years, meaning before that men completely controlled politics and war. To this day, men on average earn more and hold more positions of power, and while that scale is tipping and the power is evening out among the genders, it still makes sense to women that men are often capable of insecurity when it comes to women. They are the physically stronger, the hero, the born leader, according to the epics; and so if Shahravar wants to kill his newly wedded wives for an entire year, or if Gilgamesh wants to go to bed with all the newly married virgins before they bed their husbands then they could, because they “belong’ to them. Jealousy today is a good example of ego, although not as extreme as in the 9^th century.

2. Both the vizier and his daughter, Shahrazad, tell tales that surround their human characters with important animals, but the animals play different roles in the imaginative worlds of father and daughter. Compare and contrast the powers attributed to the animal world in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife with those described in The Story of the Merchant and the Demon. How may these differences reflect the contrasting visions of gender relations so central to The Thousand and One Nights?

The animals in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey are selfish and cunning, much like Shahravar’s idea of women before Shahrazad, and the animals in the Tale of the Merchant and his Wife are innocent and unjustly treated, much like the women Shahravar condemns in his bias of women. Shahrazad tells these stories in subtle imitation of the king; weaving one within another to save her life, and all virgins in the land, and her sisters from the crazy king. It is interesting in these tales that the female figure is usually a concubine or a slave, and yet the main subject is Sharazad’s cunning in cuckolding the king.

3. Do you believe the penalties suffered are appropriate to the sins committed in Dante’s Inferno? Why or why not?

No way. There is no way walking for eternity on hot sand is the just punishment for being a homosexual, or that you should even have to go to hell for gathering interest on something you owe. Dante’s inferno takes punishment to the extreme, but what makes sinning and punishment impossible to gauge is that everyone is different. Like the telltale story of how the poor man steals some bread from a bakery to feed his starving family. Does this man deserve an eternity of hell as equally as a Jack the ripper? Dante’s inferno dwells on the brimstone belief of scaring people out of sinning, that bad choices or the rejection of God will consequently lead you to an eternity of suffering, and so since the stakes are high, things are exaggerated, much like in religious stories.

1. Shahrayar’s madness is based on frailties of character that are unique to him.  It is clear to see that any man that experienced what he first did with his wife would have been stricken with grief. This is seen by his brother first encountering his own troubles. However, his brother does not allow madness to overtake him. I think that Shahrayar viewed himself as above the reaches of infidelity. As the king, I think he found it unfathomable that anyone would see him as less than the ultimate to be desired. He most likely thought that any woman would have gladly married him and stayed faithful. Ay other man would be able to realize, more readily, the possibility of being cheated on.

2. The animals in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife are able to communicate with each other and affect change in behavior among each other and humanity. In The Story of the Merchant and the Demon animals are subject to humanity. Their fate is based on the wills of those who own them and who have more power over them. This power usually  comes from witchcraft and malice. Also, in the latter, it is only the women who possess the powers to cast spells and understand the animals, whereas in the first story, it is the man who understands the animals. In The Story of the Merchant and the Demon, there are two distinct types of women. There are the ones that intend evil and the ones who inform and help  save those who are in bad situations. These animals mirror the overall story of The Thousand and One Nights because  the  animals in the first stories act among themselves to try to get what they want, like all the women that  Shahrayar encountered at the beginning of the story,  whereas the animals in the third story are helpless unless someone intervenes on their behalf, like the women who are killed by Shahrayar before Shahra

3. Honestly, I do not believe that the sufferings were appropriate. I think that there is no way to rate the evil of one sin to another. I think that they are all just as worthy of the same kind of treatment and suffering. I can, however, understand why Dante would put some sins above others, as that is how most people would rank them. But I think that it is not up to us to determine the appropriateness of punishments. Also, I don’ believe that people commit only one kid of sin. This makes no sense to me as to how it would be decided as to which circle they would end up in.

1. How are we to understand Shahrayar’s madness? Does it make sense to you? That is, are male egos in macho societies that frail, or is his a special case?
Ok where do I start, trying to understand Shahryar’s madness is in my opinion, like trying to understand why people commit suicide. One can’t fathom the idea of committing suicide or murdering someone until they find themselves in the same struggle. So trying to understand Shahryar I don’t think is really something we can do until we have been there. However, does that struggle make it ok?

No, Shahryar’s actions were an act of evil and I no way ok, do they make sense? Yes, they the reason or motive is clear. Shahryar is a king someone in high statue, he gets his pride degraded, humiliated if you will. Of course that brought great anger. In those days women were inferior to man, and for a woman too betray him was extremely embarrassing, disrespectful and brought him great anger. Again do I think its ok, defiantly not but, the motive is clear and there is no mystery as to why he did what he did. When you degrade a man’s pride in this macho society it forces a prideful man to act with his ego. In fact I hold a great deal of respect for men and women who can maintain humility and self-control, when confronted with issues that deal with ego and pride.

2. Both the vizier and his daughter, Shahrazad, tell tales that surround their human characters with important animals, but the animals play different roles in the imaginative worlds of father and daughter. Compare and contrast the powers attributed to the animal world in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife with those described in The Story of the Merchant and the Demon. How may these differences reflect the contrasting visions of gender relations so central to The Thousand and One Nights?

In the merchant and the demon story the gender is turned, it seems that the demon is a woman and the having the control and the power over the men. On the contrary, in the merchant and his wife the males have the power and animals and women are inferior. It shown because at first the male was manipulated by his wife, however after hearing from the rooster and the dog.

3. Do you believe the penalties suffered are appropriate to the sins committed in Dante’s Inferno? Why or why not?

This was very interesting because the penalties for the sins seemed very random. It seemed that the penalties weren’t specific to the sin. None the less, it also showed that some sin is worse or less bad than others. It was weird to see sin as a tier system. It makes me wonder if heaven is the same way. Tiers for how good of a person you were. Either way, I thought the penalties weren’t appropriate in the regard that the penalties were kind of random.

1. When he catches his wife sleeping with “the help”, Shahrayar loses his mind and kills her. I’m sure anyone who’s been cheated on in a relationship has felt like this – maybe not to the point of pulling out a sword, but certainly hoping the other party maybe “accidently” trips and falls in front of a bus. And the anger with all women, at least for Shahrayar, came when he witnessed his sister-in-law cheating on his brother with yet another servant, and again when the brothers stumble upon an unfaithful demon’s wife. In the Middle East, where this story originates from, males are regarded as the strongest and smartest. To have a woman do what she wants when her husband isn’t around is like saying that he doesn’t have his wife under control, and if he can’t even control his own wife, what else can’t he control? The ego and reputation take a huge beating. I don’t think it’s the male ego that’s necessarily frail in the culture, but the fear of loss of control.

2. As the Vizir uses The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey (and its sequel The Merchant and His Wife), to try to dissuade his daughter from marrying the King, the animals in his tales have human-like thinking characteristics and are pretty demeaning towards women. None of the analogies in his stories fit Shahrazad’s situation though, so she ignores her father and marries the King anyway. The animals in her first tale to the King, the Tale of the Merchant and the Demon, were once unworthy people and are merely animals with no special attributes. The demon looks like a metaphor for the King though; like the King – who’s murdered every virgin bride he married the morning after their wedding – the demon seems to have no compassion for the merchant. The merchant (read: women) has wronged him, and so must be punished, regardless of the lack of guilt.

3. I don’t know if the punishments in Dante’s Inferno were appropriate or not, but he certainly must have struck fear into the hearts of the people reading his words back then. I have to admit, some of the punishments left me a little confused (I really don’t understand how turning into a tree for eternity is a punishment for sucide), but others did make a little more sense. The Sowers of Scandal and Schism had to walk in circles with woulds that opened and closed repeatedly; psychologicaly, starting rumors and passing along gossip could be like that for the victim.

I don’t think that Shahrayar’s madness is a special case by any means. Many people, not just men, are hurt by acts of infidelity. This is just like Madea’s madness caused by Jason’s betrayal. But, the way that Shahrayar regains his sanity is something that I found interesting. When Shahrayar regains his senses by the realization that others have it worse it makes his suffering easier.  Recognizing someone else has it worse than you to feel better about yourself sounds really insensitive and much too human at the same time.

Animals in the vizier’s stories appear to be simple and favor a certain human characteristic; the ox is hard working, the mule is clever, and the rooster is a misogynist. The animals in the daughter’s tales have much more personality and are more human. The wife, cursed to be a deer because she desired to be the center of attention; brothers forced to take the shape of dogs because they were not loyal to their brother. The way the merchant uses the advice of the animal to beat his wife shows how men favored obedience, and try to defend this by portraying it as a part of nature.  The daughter uses the animals to invoke sympathy and empathy.

I think the penalties are very appropriate to the sins committed in the inferno. The idea that the souls are doomed to life their sins for an eternity in the afterlife seems like great poetic justice. The first few layers of hell don’t seem particularly scary at first either. While the gates to hell certainly are despairing, and the mindless souls doomed to chase their banner endlessly is cruel. Limbo on the other hand seemed less cruel and more reserved. The circles up the 4^th circle all seem to fit the punishment, primarily living the sins you committed for an eternity. I think that violence or wrath is the greatest sin is very true, and to life out an eternity of violence seems like an appropriate end.

1. To an extent we can understand Shahrayar’s madness as one born from betrayal then cynicism. However, his method of trying to outwit cunning women is not clever, just an exertion of his power. I do not think it is a matter of male egos being frail. His initial reaction, though very extreme in killing his wife and her lover, is a hot rage that I imagine most men would feel. I don’t think it is a special case in that any man could be hurt and at a loss when they are cheated on, and that there can be general distrust and, in worse cases, contempt towards women after the event. In killing women, he was deterring being hurt ever again. As harsh as his response was, the base line is that he didn’t want his heart broken again. Most people build up walls or are cautious after experiencing getting cheated on. Even though other people aren’t to blame, it’s baggage that you carry with you until you heal from it.

2. The storied that the vizier told his daughter, the Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and that of the Merchant and his wife were meant to serve as a warning of the extreme consequences that would befall her for her plan. In the story of the Donkey and the Ox, she represents the Donkey, who is trying to save others from the fate, but in doing so only serves as a substitute. He is trying to explain that by volunteering, she is not helping anyone but just temporarily filling in a space and will have the same fate as the rest. The second story is to try and further clear her misconceptions of how the night will end. Even though she plans to outwit the King, he is dominant to her, a woman, despite her best attempts. The Story of the Merchant and the Demon is supposed to show even when people, particularly women, do something wrong, they can be forgiven.

3. I am not completely convinced that the penalties suffered are appropriate to the sins committed. Growing up, I learned that each commandment was equally important: to break one sin was of equal consequence as another. I also do not think it is appropriate to judge what other people do. I am very much a believer of, “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ That being said, I do think that there are actions that are especially bad, and in order to preserve intrinsic value of what is right, a suitable punishment should be given. In the end they are all being punished by having to go to helI, or at least a kind of purgatory. It does seem to fit that once there, the severity would differ. The limbo described in the Comedy reminds me of reading the final story of the Chronicles of Narnia. Those who are not believers are left in a limbo of their mind’s own design, trapped there.

1. How are we to understand Shahrayar’s madness? Does it make sense to you? That is, are male egos in macho societies that frail, or is his a special case?

I can understand Shahrayar’s madness to a degree. Anyone would be angry if they had found their spouse had betrayed them and was being unfaithful, but I disagree with Shahrayar categorizing all women that way, just the same as I would have to disagree with the lovely saying, “All men are pigs.’ It goes both ways. As a male I would have to say that our ego’s are not frail when in public, but can be quite the opposite when not trying to impress everyone around you.

2. Both the vizier and his daughter, Shahrazad, tell tales that surround their human characters with important animals, but the animals play different roles in the imaginative worlds of father and daughter. Compare and contrast the powers attributed to the animal world in The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife with those described in The Story of the Merchant and the Demon. How may these differences reflect the contrasting visions of gender relations so central to The Thousand and One Nights?

The story of the Ox and the Donkey is a father telling his daughter that there is a possibility that she can be wrong, and he uses animals instead of people to give her an example of what could happen. The tale of the Merchant and his Wife, the merchant just wanted to sulk and die until he heard the rooster talking he realized he is a man and should just beat her into submission. With the story of the Merchant and the Demon the demon was in control and I thought of the demon as a women where the tides had turned and the Woman was in total dominance.

3. Do you believe the penalties suffered are appropriate to the sins committed in Dante’s Inferno? Why or why not?

I believe the penalties suffered are appropriate to the sins committed in Dante’s Inferno because the penalties were in relevance to the reason that individual was in hell. Eye for an eye. I am a firm believer in the golden rule of treating others how you would like to be treated, and I fell that rule can go both ways. When you don’t  treat people right then you should be punished by knowing what that feels like in Hell.

1. In general most people hold value in trust so when they think their trust with someone has broken they get angry. This is just what Shahrayar did, he got angry when he found out his wife was cheating. I think that underneath the macho male ego is truly frail. I think that in societies where men are expected to be the macho ones (between women and men) that (most) men spend so much time trying to act macho that when they get home the façade goes away and they are actually frail human beings. In relation to the story, I think that going through a problem, especially with your wife, and still having to be the king for a community of people would be very difficult. Being frail would not be an option and therefore at the end of the day it would be very likely that they would break down.

2.  In The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife the author uses animals that are males and seen as dominant. Thus, reinforcing the idea that is in the story, which is men are mighty and powerful and women should be quiet and do as they are told. This is different than the Merchant and the Demon because in the Merchant and the Demon the Demon is a woman and she “controls’ the men.

3. I think that most of the penalties dealt in Inferno were appropriate. I think that Hell is an ugly place and that people who get sent there did not just make a mistake or two, they did something(s) horribly wrong. There are some people who commit sins that are unforgivable and they should suffer more than just getting what they did to someone done to them. On the other hand there are a large sum of sins that people commit that they don’t need done back to them in order to understand what they did wrong or just simply be punished in that way for.

Shahrayar’s madness is a product of two different things. One is the breach of trust that occurred when he found his wife cheating on him. The other was the that when he found his wife and he concubines having sex with the slaves he realized that the women he thought were his were lying to him. Throwing in doubt all of his interactions with them and giving him a glimpse into their lives far beyond what he had ever seen before. Sharayars reaction to this both does and doesn’t make sense to me. Its understandable that someone who is betrayed in such a way no longer trusts the people that he interacts with. What doesn’t make sense though is how he regards those people as something that he can just go and use and throw away as he sees fit. This type of mental interaction is something that makes sense on a mental level but not at an emotional one. As to if male egos are that frail in macho societies or his is a special case is answered by the Vizier. The Vizier struggles with his own daughter to try and prevent her from risking her life even threatening to beat her to get her to desist. Eventually he gives in but its easy to see that he cares for his daughter and wants to protect her to the best of his ability and is willing to allow her to change his mind. Showing that Shahrayar’s reaction is the exception.

When the Vizier uses the stories of the Ox and Donkey and the Merchant and his wife he is using these stories to prove a direct point. That point being that he does not want his daughter to put her life at risk and thinks so is a poor decision by using the tale of the Ox and Donkey. Then he threatens to stop her by beating her by telling the story of the Merchant and his Wife. While Shahrazad is using the stories that she is telling as a more indirect way of giving Shahrayar a different view of women. While at the same time showing him a way to punish people that does not require him to kill everyone that makes a decision that he doesn’t like.

I believe that the penalties in are a product of the time that they were written and in my opinion some but not at all of the penalties that were faced by those that preformed these actions were worthy of the punishment faced. One of the main combination of sin and penalty suffered that I had issue with was the people who were considered pagans and suffered even though otherwise they otherwise could have lived a very just and honorable life. Thats nothing more than a product of discrimination. A few of the other parts of the levels of hell I do agree with are how hypocrites and traitors are punished.