Reading Notes: Tales From a Parrot, Part A

African Grey Parrot

    I really enjoyed the readings for today! They were wonderful stories all wrapped up in a bigger narrative, but, much like Khojisteh, I found myself getting lost in them and forgetting the context that they took place in until I got to the end of the story. 

    I don't have too much to say regarding the plot of the stories, as they were mostly short fables. The entire time I was reading the stories, I kept thinking how much they felt like fables; sometimes, they even reminded me of specific ones. For example, in the story about how the parrot "betrayed" the king to go take care of her babies, I was reminded of the fable with the tiger and the man. Specifically, how the jackal (I think it's a jackal? I could be misremembering, it might be a coyote or a fox) tricks the tiger into going back into the cage. The parrot tricks the king into opening her cage. (I'm going to go on a quick side-note rant here about the plot: I really didn't like it being referred to as a betrayal. I know that the moral of the fable is to be careful who you trust, etc., but the parrot was being kept as a literal slave, she had no obligations to finish healing the king who had paid for her because she's a slave. I just hate the narrative that someone who is being treated as a possession is under any kind of obligation to their legal owner. I know the bold has gotten a little excessive, that idea just really doesn't sit well with me and I wanted to point out how I felt. Now, back to the regularly scheduled content of how these are fables.) I think the point of the parrot telling these stories, though was to tell fables. He especially keeps telling fables of wives cheating on their husbands. I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm pretty sure he's doing it on purpose, I don't think that that's a huge stretch of logic. He's trying to get her to consider how her actions are affecting her husband, and that's seen when the woman keeps going to him, night after night.

    Khojisteh keeps being sad and telling the parrot that she just wants to see her lover, why does he keep telling her off. But, first of all, he just brings up an interesting story and she's the one who asks to hear it. I know that that's the parrot's whole plan, but it is based on her natural curiosity, he isn't chaining her down and forcing her to stay until he's done. But, she feels rebuked by the morals of his story about faithfulness. He's a clever parrot, so he does always phrase it out of concern for her and the man she's going to meet who she doesn't really know, but she feels the rebuke. And, if the shoe fits... Well, she's maybe realizing the potential consequences of her actions.

`I realize that I've written far more than I thought I would, which is a good thing, but I'm so excited to finish this reading and see how the tale ends!

Bibliography: The Tooti Nahmah, or Tales of a Parrot by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi, 1801.