Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

My first reaction to reading Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp was, “that was weird.” It was not what I expected, but was still an interesting read, especially with the additional reading of the articles that provided some context to the story’s origin.

While reading the story, I had a few questions come to mind, some of which were answered later in the text. To start with, I was confused by why the Magician needed the lamp in the first place, considering he had the genie from the ring. This is explained later, when Aladdin asks the ring genie for something that he is not powerful enough to do. Another question I had was about where the story was written. It takes place in China (which was a surprise to me because everything seemed Middle Eastern), and then has an evil magician from Africa, making me think it was written in a place that might have negative attitudes towards Africa/Africans. Upon reading the article by Mari Ness, it made more sense that the two places were displayed in the ways they were. I thought it was weird that they specified two different types of slaves based on race; white and black. It made me curious as to what the view on race was back then and how black slaves were viewed versus white ones.

I also thought it was interesting that women and foreigners caused bad things to happen, but Aladdin, who uses magic to achieve his goal of marrying the princess, is not seen as the bad guy. The magician is African and takes the palace to Africa, which portrays Africa in a bad light, and the princess is the one who gives him the lamp, which somewhat shows her as careless. I would consider what Aladdin did as wrong; he used magic to allow him to spend the night with the princess, and then to get enough wealth to convince the Sultan to allow him to marry her. These things do make sense when considering that this story is about rebelling and going against the status quo. It’s interesting that magic is used to do this though, conveying somewhat that going against the status quo without external help is difficult.

I like the message about changing status levels, but to be frank, I don’t like how it is conveyed in this story. Aladdin is lazy and doesn’t want to work, yet goes from rags to riches based on sheer luck. The story doesn’t encourage hard work or being clever to change your status. This does however make some sense. The piece wasn’t written in a modern time, and the idea of being able to elevate oneself through hard work in a capitalistic system probably wasn’t a very common one. In this case, the story would provide an entertaining message for people who aren’t wealthy, and would allow them to dream of a life with more extravagance. Overall it was cool to read a story that wasn’t a traditional European one, although still kind of was because of how it was written and who wrote it. Aladdin has a very interesting place in the history of fairy tales, and upon reading one adaptation its unique elements stand out.