“The Dark Side of ‘The Arabian Nights’” by Robert Irwin explains the concealed truth behind the stories of The Thousand and One Nights. Robert emphasizes the significance of racism and how it plays such a big role in these stories. Racism is traced all the way back to racial theorists such as Gobineau, Ernest Renan, and Houston Chamberlain. In the West, it is also claimed to be biased to write about racism almost as if racism was invented in Western modern times. “The racism involved is unmistakable. The scandal is clearly worsened by the fact of the slave’s blackness. The view that slavery was a divine punishment imposed on blacks was known in medieval Islam.” This quote is a very important part of the text because it goes to show that the racism discussed by the various, anonymous authors in the very many translations was intended. Although the original Arabic translation contained plenty of racial prejudice and intolerant language, many of the authors went even further to expand upon that. Especially in the French and British authors who claimed to have modified the stories in order for them to contain even more racist slurs. The English translation of Richard Burton and the French translation of Joseph Charles Mardrus were both highly altered in order for their books to sell. As stated by Irwin “The plain truth is that the stories of the Nights, like the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays, derive much of their power from cruelty, prejudice, violence, deceit and hatred.” As readers we have to ask ourselves, isn’t that what keeps us wanting to read more?
Irwin’s “The Dark Side of ‘The Arabian Nights’” specifies the alarming accuracy of racism throughout numerous unknown authors in various translations.
Paraphrasing and summarizing are different in the sense that paraphrasing is taking a text and modifying it in your own words, but it still contains the same length as the original. Summarizing is condensing the text into your own words by including the main points.
