The Arabian Nights Group 2 Summary & Analysis

Group 2: “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon,” “The First Old Man’s Tale,” & “The Second Old Man’s Tale”

Summary: “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon”

Shahrazad’s first tale begins with a wealthy merchant. While traveling, he eats dates and throws the pits onto the road. A demon appears, accuses the merchant of killing his son with a pit, and says he must die, blood for blood. Three times, the demon raises his sword to kill, but each time, the merchant begs for mercy. Finally, the demon grants the merchant for a year’s respite to settle his affairs. The merchant agrees to return on New Year’s Day the next year. At home, the merchant and his family grieve his impending death.

A year later, the merchant returns and waits for the demon. Three old men appear and, upon hearing the merchant’s story, wait with him to see how it will turn out. When the demon arrives, each old man offers to tell a story in exchange for one-third of the merchant’s life. The demon agrees.

Summary: “The First Old Man’s Tale”

The first old man tells a story about a man who is married to a young woman who bore him no children, so he took a mistress, who gave birth to a son. While the man travels, his wife turns the mistress into a cow and the son into a bull. When the man returns, he butchers the cow to celebrate a Muslim feast, but there is no meat or fat on her. He prepares to butcher the bull but stops when a shepherd tells him that his daughter, a sorceress, knows about the spell on the bull and can reverse it. The shepherd’s daughter reverses the spell and marries the son who is human again. The man wants to kill his wife for what she’s done, but the shepherd’s daughter turns her into a deer instead.

The demon enjoys the story and grants the first old man one-third of the merchant’s life.

Summary: “The Second Old Man’s Tale”

The second old man tells a tale about his two brothers. The two brothers close their shops and travel but return penniless. The old man takes them in and gives them money to open their shops again. Years later, the old man goes on a trip with his two wayward brothers. During their travels, a woman approaches the old man and begs him to marry her. Soon after, his two brothers become jealous and throw the man and his new wife into the sea. The wife, however, is a she-demon who saves her and the old man’s lives and turns the two brothers into dogs.

The demon enjoys the story and grants the second old man one-third of the merchant’s life.

Analysis: “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon,” “The First Old Man’s Tale,” & “The Second Old Man’s Tale”

In this earliest part of the collection, Shahrazad’s plan begins to work. For eight nights, she tells “The Story of the Merchant and the Demon,” and each night, she stops at a point of great suspense, which prompts her husband, King Shahrayar, to spare her life because he wants to know what will happen next. During the days, Shahrayar does his kingly business, and at night, he returns to their bed to listen again. Each night, Shahrazad’s sister, Dinarzad, is there in their bedroom to help prompt the tales. This pattern will continue throughout the text, for several hundred nights. After each night’s storytelling, Shahrayar says that he will spare Shahrazad until he hears the end of the story and then he will put her to death. Shahrazad is too clever to let that happen, however. Her father, the vizier, is amazed and delighted that his cunning daughter manages to live so long. Storytelling equals life for Shahrazad. If she can keep the stories going and hold her husband in suspense, her life is spared. This connection between oral storytelling and life itself is central to The Arabian Nights. Ultimately, she hopes to break Shahrayar’s pattern of marrying and killing women, not an easy task as he seems set on revenge.

The main story about the merchant and the demon branches into two other stories, one each from two of the old men who stop in the woods and who then become wrapped up in the merchant’s story, too. One story leads to another story, and that one leads to another, with each new tale contributing to the rich suspense of the umbrella story. This complex pattern of interlocking, nested tales is another configuration that will continue throughout the text, enriching the narrative and prolonging the suspense. Readers may easily feel confused about who is telling what, but in the end, every story is truly told by Shahrazad, the master storyteller.

Supernatural beings and sorcerers play important roles in these stories. The demon who appears and accuses the merchant of killing his son initiates the action of this group of tales. After the first old man leaves home, his wife learns sorcery and turns his mistress and son into animals, a motif that will repeat throughout the tales. The responsible shopkeeper’s wife turns into a she-demon who saves them from the sea and turns his jealous brothers into dogs. In The Arabian Nights, the supernatural lives side by side with the natural. The two realms share the same world, inseparably and not surprisingly. The characters take this dichotomy for granted, leaving modern readers to surmise that the ancients did too.

It is important to remember that these stories are part of a long oral tradition. They were spoken for decades, even centuries, before they were written. This translation preserves that flavor with dramatic dialogue and vivid descriptions. The cliff-hanger endings are sometimes emphasized by ellipses, and one can almost hear Shahrazad’s rhythmic and theatrical voice rising and falling in the darkness of the Arabian nights.

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