- Title
- Animals, sex and the Orient: a feminist retelling of the Arabian Nights
- Creator
- Hopcroft, Helen Francesca
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This exegesis explores contemporary retellings of the Arabian Nights (the Nights). This collection was first translated for European audiences in 1704, and subsequently became something of a ubiquitous cultural icon in the West, particularly in nineteenth-century England. On the basis of texts influenced by the Nights, such as Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, Arabian Nights and Days (1979) by Naguib Mahfouz, Nights at the Circus (1984) by Angela Carter and When Dreams Travel (2003) by Githa Hariharan, this exegesis argues that there is a literary tradition of using the collection, and the frame story in particular, as a platform from which to critique power. The nature and scope of this critique has changed over time: texts from the nineteenth century have tended to consider the moral consequences of colonialism, while those in the twentieth and current century are generally using the Nights as a vehicle to explore feminist, ecological and postcolonial issues. In addition to the exegesis, this thesis includes a novella length piece of creative writing that speaks to this tradition, specifically by using the Nights to critique male power over women, and female complicity in this process; references to human power over animals are also frequently embedded in the text. The novella, an eroticised reimagining of the Nights, is narrated in the first person by Scheherazade and includes a number of individual stories that reference the tropes of fairy tale and traditional British children’s literature. Thematically, the novella challenges what Val Plumwood has called the “the lower value accorded the underside, the body, the senses, emotion, the imagination, the animal, the feminine and nature” (Feminism 123). By conflating Scheherazade’s storytelling with her embodiment, it introduces the concept of ‘skin narratives’ – or sexual performances- and suggests that these play an important role in her perception of empowerment. This focus on the body is meaningful primarily because it accepts embodiment as the ultimate source of all culture and cognition, thus reversing a fundamental Western binary. The novella suggests that if stories emerge from bodies, and both are conceived as having liberatory potential, then storytelling is a type of imaginative becoming that invites agency into our material lives.
- Subject
- Arabian Nights; Animal Studies; The Bloody Chamber; Arabian Nights and Days; Scheherazade; feminism; erotic; Human Animal Studies; '1001 Nights'; ecofeminism; fairy tale; Angela Carter; Vathek; Naguib Mahfouz; When Dreams Travel; Nights at the Circus; Githa Hariharan; William Beckford
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1353465
- Identifier
- uon:31101
- Rights
- Copyright 2017 Helen Francesca Hopcroft. The creative element of this thesis is under embargo and will be made available 30.05.2025.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 746 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 143 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |