The Franklin's Tale begins with a love story between a noble knight named Arveragus and a beautiful noblewoman named Dorigen. The two marry, and promise to each other that they would remain faithful under all circumstances.
Soon, Arveragus goes off on a two-year journey, leaving Dorigen at home, mourning the absence of her husband. She often sat on the shore of Brittany, contemplating the dangers that confront her husband's life. While in her isolation, Aurelius, an equally courteous and handsome man, falls in love with Dorigen. When he reveals his love to her, she rejects him, sending Aurelius into a deep sadness. She tries to comfort Aurelius by saying that if he was able to remove all the stones from the shore of Brittany, she would be his, assuming that this task was beyond possible. Aurelius first tries to do this himself, but eventually hires a young magician to do the task for a large sum of money, and the task is done successfully.
Aurelius shows Dorigen that her request had been fulfilled, and she begins to weep, knowing that she had betrayed her husband. At this time, Arveragus returns and sees his weeping wife, she explains her predicament and then he allows her to go to Aurelius to fulfill her promise. Aurelius, when he heard of Arveragus's graciousness, he returned Dorigen to him. Aurelius also realised that he didn't have enough money to pay the magician, but upon hearing the story, he cancelled his debt.
The Wife of Bath's Tale is yet another odd tale of Chaucer's collection in Canterbury Tales. The tale begins by describing the British Isle, which was once a place of elves and faeries. Now, it has been overrun by friars and other political and ecclesiastical leaders, who go through the country raping women.
One lustful knight is travelling and finds a beautiful maiden among Kng Arthur's people. He is so overcome with lust and the ability to do as he pleases, he rapes her. He is discovered and it is decided that he shall be executed. However, the queen among other ladies of Arthur's court intervene, pleading that his life be spared. It is then decided that he shall go out and discover what it is that all women truly desire, and if he fails to do so, he shall be executed.
The knight sets out, unsure of where to begin, he goes around asking women of different regions, towns, shires, and cities, what is it they most desire. All of them gave different answers. He continued to do this for sometime before giving up, and finally making a return journey to Arthur's court to receive justice.
On the return journey, the knight comes across a group of dancing women. Upon approach, they vanish, and instead, an old hag stands before him. The knight still explains his dilemma, and she insists that she can help, but in return she, the knight must do as she wishes. As his final attempt at saving his own life the hag returns with him to Arthur's court.
She speaks in front of Arthur's court, on the knight's behalf, saying that all that women desire is to have complete control over their husbands. All the women in the court agree with this statement. The hag however, requests that the knight marry her. The knight is horrified but reluctantly must agree to as she says.
After several days of being married to this old woman, the knight is encaptured in immense sadness. He vocalises his discontented spirit with his old wife and she asks if he'd rather have an faithful ugly wife, or a promiscuous beautiful wife. Unsure, the knight lets the hag decides, and thus provides her with control: what it was she truly desired. She immediately turns into a faithful and beautiful wife.
In the Song of Roland, the poet makes a very sure distinction between not only the pagans and the Franks, but also between each of the individual characters. Through the heroes and villains in the story, the poet gives a moral expectation for the neo-Romans in Francia. The two heroes in the story, Charlemagne and Roland, symbolise heroism through their actions. Charlemagne, who is two centuries old and has gathered quite a lot of wisdom at this stage of his life, identifies with a more paternal figure and heroism. In the Song, Charlemagne is quite the opposite of the virile hero we might picture. Instead, he is a small, shriveled and ancient man, aged by life and the many battles he fights. He is wise, humble, and diplomatic. He symobolises one side of heroism in the Song.
Roland is depicted as a young fellow, well [self-] absorbed in his own youth. He is strong, noble, brave, and proud. He is the young virile hero we might imagine a medieval hero to be, and perhaps he was the one from which Charlemagne aged. While Roland lacks the wisdom and humility gained with age, he possess the physical prowess necessary in combat. And here lies the other side of heroism in the epic. However, it is important to note that without diplomacy, strength is useless; without humility, pride has no meaning; without wisdom, power is weakness. And so it is exemplified in the Song.
A typical night in the glory of an Arabian province. A wealthy turban-ed man comes home from a long day of work managing his local oil rig, producing millions upon millions of dollars each week. "Salem, Abdul!", cautiously says one of this seven wives. Yes, this man's name is indeed Abdul Muhammed Nassar. "Prepare me my falafel, woman!" he yells back sternly, and quite honestly, forgetting whether it was Fatima or Alia whom he addressed. At no more than this, the unknown wife runs back into her familiar place in the kitchen, fearing for her life, considering the fate of her predecessors. After all, Abdul has had a long day at work, his personal belly-dancer was ill today, and his cousin, Hakeem Muhammed Sarkis, had died in a local bombing (one which he himself initiated, of course), and at any point, her husband could act homicidally.
What must this do with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? In this apparently simple story, the under lying theme does its best to reject and discredit the many stereotypes the West has developed about the arab culture, most prominently, those regarding Arab women.
Marjana is the lowest of low. She is a slave. And not only is she a slave, be that bad enough, she is a female slave. She serves her master, Qasim, until he is murdered. She then helps dispose of the body by faking a post-mortem death. Be that not clever enough, she saves the life of her more heroic master, Ali Baba, on multiple accounts and continues to murder thirty-eight thieves. Her keen intellect and sharp wits are demonstrated throughout our story, emphasising the fact that this woman is only good befriended, or married to, as Ali Baba took to.
The cleverness of Marjana in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves annihilates all and any remaining stereotypes about either slaves or women that were perpetuated by the readings of such misogynous stories such as the The Tale of Scheherazade. In that story, the only role women played was to destroy the lives of men, extracting the only meaningful moral which was to control your wives through any means, especially if it means physical beatings or execution. In contrast, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves demonstrates women in a way that strongly benefits the house of Ali Baba Instead of chaos breaking when the woman deals in secrecy, Ali Baba life is spared multiple times, noting that women are much more beneficial in deception than in tight grips, another common stereotype of arab culture.
The Tale of Scheherazade is a fascinating story of two Arabian men defending their own status of manliness from the actions of their very own wives. Despite its quite simple plot and curious (especially to westerners) moral theme, this Tale of Scheherazade offers an abundance of commentary of the workings of Arabian literature in the culture it was being read.
One important element I noted in reading The Tale of Scheherazade was the emphasis put into the character descriptions and the conflicts between the characters. Interestingly, the sole source of conflicts in this story is adultery, a practice frowned down upon in many cultures, especially in Islamic Arabia. In many western stories, we see conflict between men and men, men and gods, and gods and gods. Here we have an instance of conflict between man and wife, familial bonds broken, never to be repaired. Family is an important part of all cultures, and serves a great plot twist when there are marital bonds betrayed. In Sophocles' Oresteia, family bonds are treated with just as much emphasis and are dramatised in similar degrees. As for character description, the story places heavy emphasis on the relationship of one's social status with their racial and aesthetic characteristics.
Another element that plays in the story is the immersion of religious and political law. In the story, when the wives and their lovers are caught in adultery, the natural response was capital punishment. Law appears unquestionable in this story, as the punishments dealt in the story are termed in such "matter-of-fact" words.
The last part of the narrative that I found interesting was its fairytale-esque mannerisms. The story is presented within another story. There is a mythical element to it that coordinates with the reality of the story. And most notably in Burton's translation, there is an almost "forced" rhythm and metre to it. Each of these parts reminds me of tales of Aesop and Grimm, while having the mature content and sophistry of Homer and Virgil.
