From persuasion to salvation : the power of women’s discourse in the Arabian Nights and Handbook for William

Abstract EN

In political situations, negotiation is a key process that must be built on strategies to convince when conversing with addressees.

To obtain power and influence, women's discourse, too, must follow a coherent plan, particularly in circumstances related to an imperial court, in order to achieve the greatest success in attempting to persuade.

Relying primarily on Marcel Mauss's formulation of ritual exchange in The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, this paper will discuss the function of Scheherazade's stories in The Arabian Nights, which she narrates to her husband Shahryar, and Dhuoda’s advice in her Handbook, which she composes for her son William, as a commodity in gift exchange, which will serve as a model of successful women's discourse as ransom in payment for salvation.

Both the Handbook and the Nights have a five-step plan that consists of many themes acting as didactic or therapeutic messages that are implied in the two books to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange.