The Narrative Structure in One Thousand and One Nights Stories: The Story of “The Merchant and the Elf” as an Example

Abstract

This research aims to examine the One Thousand and One Nights Stories, a book of Arabic literature that is translated into many languages. This study found that the One Thousand and One Nights Stories are based on some narrative structures and basic pillars, whether they are main، secondary, or implicit stories. We found that they were based on several axes. including the overlap and interconnection between the main and subsidiary stories, the choice of (Scheherazade) as a feminist element that has its reasons and justifications in expressing the position of women in those stories and the principle of reward and punishment. On which the main events of these stories are based, there is no good deed that does not have a reward, and there is no bad deed that does not have a punishment. There is the strange and miraculous structure, which is the main reason for the writing of the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, their continued influence, and the interaction of the recipient with them. If these stories were not strange, Shahrayar would not have spared the life of Scheherazade. When the goblin spared the merchant’s life, there is a final axis, which is the call for emotional participation shown by the recipient regarding these stories.