Reading Notes: Tales of a Parrot, Part B

I read this entire reading in one go, that is how entertaining it was! I am sad to say that the second half did not intrigue me as much as the first half; there are only so many ways to retell the same message, and after twenty stories, I was losing interest in the style. The ENDING though was what really blew me away. Throughout the reading, Khojisteh never actually went to her lover. The parrot had kept her from departing with his stories, and many of them implied that the wife would be okay as long as she remained loyal to her husband. But it turns out the parrot was out for revenge all along. It was the wife that got fooled in the end. All his precautions were true, but it does not dissuade the fact that emotionally, the wife had already cheated on her husband. Emotional sin, even without action, is sin nonetheless. The parrot was distraught that Khojisteh killed the sharuk, his beloved companion, and this whole while was repressing his feelings and scheming to get back at her. This is so interesting to me, as one of the first stories he recounted was how a merchant's parrot helped cover up the cheating wife's infidelity and repair the relationship between the two. In fact, multiple stories revolved around an animal's ability to help the human maintain relationships, although it often required covering the truth.

Image details: parrot couple; source

The whole time, the author led the reader to believe the parrot would help Khojisteh remain loyal to her husband, and the two would maintain their loving relationship when he returned. The shock factor is even more impactful since, by this time, the reader is partial to Khojisteh, who has been suffering from loneliness having been left by her husband for an unspecified period of time. But she should not have fallen for her lover to begin with. What I love about this ending is that the remaining chapters seemed to be excuses justifying Khojisteh's feelings and actions, when in reality none of those changes the fact that she was immoral. All the excuses can be wiped away in an instant. Also, the beginning chapters focused a lot on the passionate love between Khojisteh and Miemun, so it was easy to disregard the relationship between the parrot and the sharuk. The reality is that the realtionship between the birds was true, the one between the humans was weak and easily broken. What a great understatement in the beginning which fuels the plot, only to be revealed at the end. This reading definitely gave me some more things to think about; a lot of techniques would work great with my own storytelling project!

The Tooti Nameh (The Tales of a Parrot). Ziya'al-Din Nakshabi (1801). Web Source.

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