‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’ shares a number of plot features with a later European fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in the nineteenth century: ‘The Tinder Box’. (This is probably because the anonymous authors who passed down the story of Aladdin over the centuries weren’t too hot on geography, and merely wanted the setting of the story to be somewhere in ‘the East’ or ‘Orient’.)īut the environment of the story is clearly one which betrays its medieval origins: a world in which women are to be bought and sold by the highest bidder (the sultan is happy to have his daughter married off to either Aladdin or the vizier’s son, depending on which of them can produce the more expensive gift – and he grants Aladdin permission to marry the princess without ever having met the young man). Yet the evil magician is specifically described as living in Africa, as distinct from where Aladdin lives. The story states that Aladdin lives in China, although ‘Aladdin’ sounds more like an Arabic name than Chinese, and the other characters in the story also have Arabic names. In the original story, he shows no interest in the princess’s personality or feelings: whether she wants to marry him or not doesn’t seem to cross his mind, as he has her bridegroom thrown into the damp privy and abducts her to his own home.īut this is partly explained by the setting of the story of ‘Aladdin and the Magic Lamp’ – although where that setting is precisely supposed to be has had critics and anthologists scratching their heads for some time. Thereafter, too, he can come across as greedy, someone who – thanks to the gift of the magic lamp, which he does little to earn – merely has to summon his loyal servant, the genie, to gain whatever he wishes. He begins the story as a bit of a scamp, without ambition or loyalty to his parents, and is taken in by the first evil magician’s ruse and his promise to make the boy rich. The story of Sinbad the Sailor was also a late addition to the 1,001 Nights, even though the story had been around – independently – for some time before the eighteenth century.ĭespite being whitewashed (almost literally) for the 1992 Disney film, Aladdin is not some goody-two-shoes hero, and is far more interesting than many protagonists of other well-known fairy tales. We’ve previously discussed how none of the three most famous stories from the collection we know as the Arabian Nights or 1,001 Nights was originally part of the sequence: the story of ‘ Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ and the tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp were both added to the much older collection of tales in the early eighteenth century, by a French translator named Antoine Galland, who claimed he had heard the story from a Syrian storyteller named Hanna Diyab. And Aladdin and the princess live happily ever after – with Aladdin becoming the sultan when the Lady Badar al-Budur’s father dies. The genie also tells Aladdin that he’s been tricked by a magician, and Aladdin kills the magician, having pretended to have a headache and claimed that he needs the holy woman’s healing hands on him. When the princess passes this on to Aladdin, he rubs the lamp and summons the genie, who flies into a rage when Aladdin requests the egg, because the Roc is the mistress who rules over the genie. He then tells the princess that the pavilion would be perfect if only they had a Roc’s egg hanging from the ceiling. So he disguises himself as Fatimah, a holy woman, concealing his beard behind a veil and gaining the trust of the princess, who wishes such a holy woman to come and live in her and Aladdin’s pavilion with them. However, although the sorcerer is dead, he has a brother who is even more evil and intent on avenging his brother’s death. The sultan is overjoyed when he sees his daughter his safe and well, and when Aladdin explains about the evil wizard, the sultan and Aladdin are best of friends again. He then recovers the lamp from the sorcerer’s body and demands that the pavilion be returned to its original location back in China. The plan works, and Aladdin then appears, disguised as one of the servants, and kills the sorcerer who had caused him so much trouble. Once there, Aladdin speaks secretly with the princess, and they hatch a plan: she will encourage the magician (who has taken a shine to her), asking for wine when they eat together, and then use a drug which Aladdin has bought that will knock the man unconscious.
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