60 pages • 2 hours read
The Last Housewife
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Background
Literary Context: Scheherazade and The Thousand and One Nights
The Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights, is a collection of stories from Middle Eastern folklore and literature, belonging to the Islamic Golden Age, which occurred between the 8th and 13th centuries in the Middle East. The collection itself is not uniform, with different editions containing different stories, but the framework of the collection remains the same. The king, Shahryar, is upset at his wife’s infidelity and has her killed. Believing all women to be unfaithful, the king marries a succession of virgins, all of whom are killed the night after the marriage to prevent them from ever committing adultery. Scheherazade, the daughter of one of the king’s advisers, offers to marry the king, and she delays her execution by telling the king stories. Scheherazade’s effort to delay her own death has been used in a variety of works to represent the power and intelligence of women and of femininity.
In The Last Housewife, Shay Deroy, who is revealed to be the author of the novel at the end of the book, uses a similar framing device, using Scheherazade’s name to connect her story to The Thousand and One Nights. Instead of telling stories to the king, though, Shay is telling the stories of her own life and her investigation into Laurel Hargrove’s death, and, instead of delaying her execution, Shay is asking the Plus, gain access to 8,500+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
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