Folktale Analysis
“Forty Fortunes”
By: Gabby Ayala
This folktale from Iran is about a poor man named Ahmed who, from the persuasion of his wife, pretends to be a fortuneteller. The only problem is, he has no idea how to be a fortune teller and when the kings 40 chests of gold are stolen, is asked to retrieve them in 40 days or else he will be thrown in jail. And as “fortune” would have it, he finds the 40 thieves and makes them return the treasure two the king. The king then bestows on him two chests of gold and Ahmed and his wife live happily ever after.
From the story, you can infer various things about the culture and society at the time. At the beginning of the story it says it was set in Isfahan, this was the old capital of Iran so immediately we know where the fable takes place. Along with this information, the names (Achmed, Jamell) also come from Middle Eastern roots, leading us to believe that the characters would have spoken some for of Arabic dialect. There is also mention of a house with stairs leading up to a flat roof with a terrace, since we know that during around the 1500’s middle eastern people normally slept on our roof, we can guess that the climate fairly hot, so to cool themselves down they slept on their roofs at night. Another thing that tells us what time period it is in is the mention of the various technologies such as the pick, shovel, bolt doors and public baths, all of which were used and invented around 600 years ago. From the story, we can tell that in daily life, sleeping on the rooftops and socializing in public baths was routine. The story also tells us that when Achmed is paid, the normal currency was silver and gold coins. Then when Achmed becomes a fortuneteller, it is clear that many people believe in the witchcraft (since even the king has a personal “diviner”, showing that religion and sorcery still held higher importance then that of science and reason. Achmed also thanks a God repeatable through the story for his good fortune, again influences how important religion was in society. We learn which form religion it is when it is immediately notices that a woman has a piece of skin showing. Thus, Iran was probably already under Islamic rule since the religion requires women to cover themselves completely. When the king is robbed, we learn another two things, that Iran is still ruled using a monarchy and that the government is under a small attack by groups of thieves and rebels. The story however also says fortune telling is fake, with all the fortune tellers failing to find the thieves and treasure and Achmed only finding them because of sheer luck and intelligence.
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