Sabrina Wong
10T
\/pThe Personality between the Grand-vizier (King Schahriar and His Brother) and Monsieur Loisel (The Necklace)
"King Schahriar and His Brother" is an extract from "The Arabian Nights", originally written in Arabic over thousands of years ago. The story starts with a girl named Scheherazade, determined to stop the outrageous acts committed by Sultan Schahriar. Scheherazade's father, also known as the grand-vizier, aids her into succeeding her mission by making his daughter the next bride of Sultan Schahriar. On the other hand, "The Necklace", is an extract translated from French to English – written by Guy de Maupassant. This short story is set in 19th century France, in which a charming lady wants to be envied, wanted and courted. Similarly, Monsieur Loisel gives four hundred francs to his wife so she can look more beautiful for an evening. However, do these two men have ulterior motives when helping these women, or did they merely have good intentions?
In the extract of "The Arabian Nights", the grand-vizier was hired to kill married women every morning, and to kill innocent girls who absolutely hated Sultan Schahriar because they were forced into this marriage. The grand-vizier would have to murder the Sultan's bride for the reason that, 'he fewer the world contained women, the better, but he would not be able to voice his reluctance or the country's misery to the Sultan, if he wanted to be alive. The plot thickens when the grand-vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, wants to be Sultan's bride to try 'to stop this barbarous practice'. He could only tell the Sultan that 'he would bring him Scheherazade' to be his bride as it was her own wish. This clearly states that at the end, the grand-vizier did not stand up for his daughter's safety, and his allowance of his daughter to do so against his wishes indicates cowardice.
The grand-vizier has two daughters, of which our main character is the elder. Scheherazade is his delight and pride, and she receives words of praise and compliments such as 'the best masters in philosophy, medicine, history and the fine arts…' from her father. Emphasizing on the use of superlatives, the grand-vizier proves his family love, albeit materialistically to his eldest daughter; therefore gives the best, greatest, and finest education and life towards Scheherazade. In addition, his existence revolves around his daughters since he replies to Scheherazade's favour, 'I can refuse you nothing that is just and reasonable.' Scheherazade's father literally gives everything he has to his family thus establishing his love towards them and creating an impression of a caring father. However, there is a question of whether the grand-vizier truly understands the boundaries of what is 'just and reasonable' and what is not.
Sultan Schahriar has a theory that "all women were as wicked as the Sultana…and the fewer the world contained the better". The grand-vizier was hence the unfortunate man given the duty to end the lives of the Sultan's unhappy brides. Everyday, he would complete his tasks and therefore prove his loyalty to the Sultan. His obedient nature is also very prominent as he states that "if the Sultan was to order me to plunge a dagger in your heart, I should have to obey".
In "The Necklace", Monsieur Loisel is a junior clerk in the Ministry of Public Instruction, for such working status he is easily content with his lifestyle. When his wife is dissatisfied with their dinner and home, Monsieur Loisel with a delighted expression says, 'Vegetable soup; what could be better than that!' This indicates that Monsieur Loisel is a humble person who takes pleasure in the simple things of life.
Monsieur Loisel is known as a stingy clerk in his wife's eyes, but ironically he provides 400 francs to Madame Loisel when he was reserving that amount of money to treat himself a gun. He exclaims to his crying wife that, 'you shall have your four hundred francs. But try to make it a really nice dress', from this alone we are able to point out the phrase 'your four hundred francs', showing that Monsieur Loisel already gave away his reserved money proves his love to Mathilde Loisel; especially when he is over cautious with money in nature. In addition, Monsieur Loisel 'had inherited eighteen thousand francs from his father. The rest he would have to borrow' and 'he loaded himself with debts for the rest of his life,' to buy a replica of the necklace Madame Loisel lost. Getting himself in danger of debt he tries everything to help her. Monsieur Loisel loves his wife so much that he spoils her.
He allows her to have childish tantrums, crying for unnecessary things and for thinking such negative thoughts without reason. This creates a big contrast between them; Monsieur Loisel is a satisfied and rational man whilst Madame Loisel is a woman who is prone to whining and being emotional. This shows that Monsieur Loisel endures the complaints from his wife regularly, and at a glance, he loves his wife too much. An example of this love can be shown when Madame Loisel continues to dance after midnight, whilst Monsieur Loisel waits for her 'in a small, deserted salon'. Here where his wife is attracting male attention; Monsieur Loisel does not show any sort of jealousy yet waits for her until she is ready to go. From this, we are able to know that he loves her and he is extremely patient to wait for four hours without complaint.
"King Schahriar and His Brother" and "The Necklace" both have similar supporting characters; both help the main character into their success and both had to suffer the grief. Both characters love their family very much; grand-vizier loves his eldest daughter and Monsieur Loisel loves his wife, coincidentally, both demonstrate their love in these extracts materialistically. In addition, both of them show cowardice, as they do not tell their feelings to anyone in particular. However, the grand-vizier helped Scheherazade by sending her into death, as he went to the Sultan 'the following evening; he would bring him Scheherazade.' On the other hand, Monsieur Loisel had nothing to do with the loss of the necklace yet he still helped her all along and 'spent his evenings auditing the accounts of various shopkeepers, and often worked far into the night, doing copying of five sous a page.' Although there is a difference on how they helped the women, they were merely just trying to help.
In these two excerpts, Monsieur Loisel is relatively more patient compared to the grand-vizier. The grand-vizier wasn't patient enough to persuade his eldest daughter to forget about her motive when she 'absolutely refused to attend her father's words, and at length, in despair, the grand-vizier was obliged to give way', whereas Monsieur Loisel was patiently waiting for his wife after the evenings as well as paying back all debts, 'This life lasted for ten years. At the end of that time they had paid back every penny with interest, plus accumulated compound interest'.
Grand-vizier is a caring father; he 'gives the best masters in philosophy, medicine, history and the fine arts…' and is unable to 'refuse anything that is just and reasonable'. Whereas, when Madame Loisel cries of the lack of dress for the evening; Monsieur Loisel doesn't understand the feelings for his wife as the 'problem had not occurred to him…and he felt dumbfounded and bewildered.' This implies that Monsieur Loisel was not caring enough to give or understand what his wife really needed at that moment. In addition, it shows that the grand-vizier is more lenient with the wants of a female in comparison to Monsieur Loisel.
Both characters are easily content with their life, this can be easily found out when both don't aim any higher in their job, and don't think critically as well as creatively. Grand-vizier did not quit his job or tell the Sultan his thoughts but simply 'fulfilled his task with reluctance'. Also, with Monsieur Loisel; he was a junior clerk when he married Mathilde and was still a junior clerk years later, furthermore when he was in debt he worked for 'various shopkeepers…doing copying at five sous a page.' This shows their reluctance to change and improvement.
In conclusion, the grand-vizier and Monsieur Loisel in the two extracts are clearly seen to be caring men who are willing to sacrifice a lot for Scheherazade and Madame Loisel, simply because of their obligation to these two women. In addition, both of them are very obedient towards the two main characters, seeing that they act towards their requests. From the character analysis; grand-vizier and Monsieur Loisel are very different and similar in different ways. In the end, they did not mean to harm the women, but were simply trying to help them unconditionally.