Character Analysis Of The Epic Of Gilgamesh, Thousand And...

In this paper, I am going to analyze the female characters that caught my attention the most in the three stories The Epic of Gilgamesh, Thousand and One Nights, and Candide. They all are important characters in each of the stories and their influence in the story is to help. These stories also depict how women were being treated during these times such as being used for their bodies or their wisdom. The characters that I will be analyzing in the paper are Shamhat, Shiduri, Sharazad, the Old Woman, and Cunegonde. In all three stories, they mostly share the same depictions of the role of women and how women weren’t really important besides their bodies. To start off, there were two characters from The Epic of Gilgamesh that interested†¦show more content†¦In the story Thousand and One Nights the character Shahrazad caught my attention because of how brave, smart, and cunning she was. â€Å"I would like for you to marry me to King Shahrayar, so that I may either succeed in saving the people or perish and die like the rest.†(Puncher 1182-1183) She was willing to volunteer herself to save the lives of other women which was very brave because the King was known for taking virgins and having sex with them then killing them. She was willing to place herself in the hands of a man that was known for degrading men. Shahrayar was also intelligent because she used stories to save her life and others. She created a very strategic plan to tell her stories. She began with stories about adultery, so it would catch the attention of the King and leave him wanting to know more. Then, she used adventurous stories to keep herself alive long enough to civilize the King and save the other women. She starts the stories off as adventurous, then she started telling stories that had morals behind them. Shahrazad was already well educated before she started telling the stories. â€Å"Shahrazad had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine.† (Puncher 1182). They also described her as being intelligent, knowledgeable, wise, and refined which were all true descriptions of her. In the story Candide, the old lady character stood out to me because she suffered more than anyone else in the story. She was resilient, humble, kind, and full of