Reading Notes: Arabian Nights, Part A

This story is interesting because it isn't just a simple story, there are many stories within a story and they all just keep unfolding. I read the tales of a Parrot last week and these stories are very similar in the idea of telling a story to delay an event. In the tales of a parrot, a parrot is trying to keep a woman away from cheating on her husband and in Arabian Nights, a woman is telling a story to keep from being killed by a king.

This king had been betrayed by his wife so he decided that he needed to kill her in order to get even. He then decided that all women would betray him just like his wife so he needed to kill all women. He gets a servant to bring him a new woman every night to marry and kill them every morning. He then ends up with the servants very daughter who sacrifices herself in order to spare other women and potentially put an end to the murder. She begins to tell him a story early one morning but didn't finish before he had to go get ready to go to work so he spares her life for the night so she can finish the next night. She continues to add layers and layers to the story so that it can expand further and her life can be spared night after night. 

When reading this story, I was curious about what actually occurred between the king and his first wife. A story making up that story would be pretty intriguing I think. I would like to try to write a story like this one with stories inside the story but I'm not sure how I could make it work with this storyline.