Images of the Oriental Women in The Arabian Nights
Abstract
The Arabian Nights was a very important channel of information that provided the westerners with ample material and useful knowledge about the east, its people, and their social life(1) . Yet, in their presentations of the oriental people and their life, they always concentrated only on the black sides. This was exactly applicable to their attitude towards oriental women. The western opinions of oriental women in The Arabian Nights were always prejudicial ones. They fluctuated between contempt and outrage. They always thought of oriental women as submissive and inferior to man. Further, they conceived that she spent her life in sexual preparations and intrigues. These wrong ideas were held and strongly expressed by western writers and public as well. Despite moral restrictions, the East for the First translator of The Arabian Night. (1704-1712) Antoine Galland was always linked with sexuality(2). In his turn, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) believed that oriental women were lazy and converse with eunuchs