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Practicing Black Art: Female Empowerment in The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night

Corresponding Author : Touhida Sultana (touhida.syl@gmail.com)

Keywords : Black art, de-transformation, metamorphosis, patriarchy, power-structure

Abstract :

The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night is a Middle Eastern Harry Potter where humans oscillate between the actual world and the magical to subvert the physical laws to attain personal gains. While the male magicians are bent on accumulating massive power, wealth to control everyone around them, the female practitioners are inclined to find a comfort zone for themselves in the patriarchal world frequently liberating those who have fallen prey to necromantic metamorphoses. The tales have, through extreme precision and careful subterfuge, shown how women folks have taken resort to worldly tricks to sabotage an enormous power- structure initiated by either man or Jinni. The diverse characters are the magical power practitioners who transform and de-transform the humans to find a safe niche and take revenge. This article explicates how women use magic to attain their ends and provides a feministic reading of the primary text from power perspective covering the theories of Foucault, Butler, and Simon de Beauvoir. Fanon, in this regard, illuminates on the power structure of white and black binaries. To him, the white men are on the top of a power ladder and the white women, black men, and black women follow them respectively. Although this stringent binary is not strictly followed in the Middle Eastern societies of the Middle Ages, yet it is quite prevalent among the Semitic men, women, and the black slaves. Above mentioned individuals use necromancy to succeed in a power-structure shaped by male chauvinistic society. All the characters try to go up in the power ladder to confirm their identity in a male subjugated hierarchal social order.

Published on December 30th, 2022 in Vol 33 Issue 2, Humanities