Reading Notes: Tales From a Parrot, Part B

"parrot" by jtrend. Web Source: Flickr

    Like before, I had a bit of a hard time with the reading notes, as it was mostly fables, but I really did enjoy the stories! But I am always left wondering how the women in them felt. In pretty much all the tales, if the women are the main characters, it's just to show them cheating on their husbands and getting punished for it (a little hint that the parrot was giving to Khojisteh). But, if they are side characters, it's usually so their father can reward a man by "giving him" the father's daughter. This just seems such hard luck. I'm sure that's historically accurate too (the latter of women being treated as objects for men to own and have sex with), but seeing it in story form really makes me wonder what these women felt like. I am very independent and stubborn, so I can't really imagine being told that I had to do something or be put to death, especially something like marry a random man just because my dad told me to. I may do a story this week breaking down one of these short stories to explore the perspective of the woman being married off.

    The second thing that really stood out to me was the ending. Why did the parrot go to all the effort to stop Khojisteh from meeting with her lover, only to tell her husband and have her put to death anyway? It just doesn't really make sense to me. Why waste all that energy when the end result would be the same? She could then at least have had some fun before dying. But I guess then maybe the point is that she would have had fun and enjoyed herself? I don't know, I just don't get it. I understand that what she wanted to do was wrong, especially killing the parrot's companion, I just can't get on board with (a) murdering her, or (b) stopping her from going to her lover only to have her killed anyway. That's all, it just straight up does not make sense to me.

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