The Decameron, 1001Nights, and The Canterbury Tales

A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc) is a narrative technique whereby a main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. Often, tales told reveal frame characters' hidden desires and motives, but in other instances the frame is more like a device to incorporate the widest variety of tale-types and to excuse the author from some responsibility for the tales' content. There are three widely known narratives that contain this literary device and they are, A Thousand and One Nights, the Decameron, and the Canterbury Tales. In, A Thousand and One Nights, a frame narrative, consists of several stories within the framework of a main story. There is usually a motivation for the stories in the personality of the narrator. In The Arabian Nights, Scheherazade has to keep telling stories to her husband the king in order to save her life and the lives of others in the kingdom. The general story is narrated by an unknown narrator, and in this narration the stories are told by Scheherazade. In most of Scheherazade's narrations there are also stories narrated, and even in some of these, there are some other stories. This is particularly the case for the "Sinbad the Sailor" story narrated by Scheherazade in the One Thousand and One Nights. Within the "Sinbad the Sailor" story itself, the protagonist Sinbad the Sailor narrates the stories of his seven voyages to Sinbad the Porter. The Decameron is structured in a frame narrative, or frame tale. The Decameron played a part in the history of the novel and was finished by Giovanni Boccaccio in 1351. This work opens with a description of the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) and leads into an introduction of a group of seven young women and three young men who fled from Plague ridden Florence for a villa outside of the city walls. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for every one of the ten nights spent at the villa. Although fourteen days pass, two days each week are set aside: one day for chores and one holy day during which no work is done. In this manner, 100 stories are told by the end of the ten days. The Decameron is distinctive work, in that it describes in detail the physical, psychological and social effects that the Bubonic Plague had on that part of Europe. It is also interesting to note that a number of the stories contained within the Decameron would later appear in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses a frame structure (sometimes called a framework-story) to connect his plots and characterizations. The outer frame narration deals with the pilgrims and their encounters with each other on the trip to Canterbury; the inner frame consists of the tales that they tell. The frame of The Canterbury Tales is a journey by a group of people of all English walks of life, to visit the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket. There are 29 pilgrims, including Chaucer himself. In order to pass the time of their long journey, the plan is for each traveler to tell a story for the crowds entertainment. The General Prologue sets the stage for

The Canterbury Tales, introducing the situation, the characters, and their motivation for making the journey. Chaucer does more than give his readers an exposition in the General Prologue; he gives a detailed physical and psychological description of each of the characters. In comparison, these three literary works all contain frame stories that are told over a certain period of time. In the Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade is telling the king never ending stories so she would be able to live for another day. She continues this routine in a period for 1001 nights. This is similar to the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales in that the groups of people are occupied with something (Black plague, or traveling) and to pass time, the people in each group tell stories over a period of time. In the Decameron, there are stories being told for ten days and within those days, one hundred stories are told. In the Canterbury Tales, each person tells an entertaining story and this repeats until they reach Canterbury. Another similarity is that in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales, there are groups of people telling stories to each other. Even though there arent many things to compare in these frame stories, they make a big impact on the book as a whole. In contrast, the 1001 Nights differs from the other two books in that Scheherazade is telling these stories for the sake of her life and the lives of other people while the characters in the Canterbury Tales and the Decameron are just doing it to pass time until they reach Canterbury. Another difference in the frame stories is that Scheherazade is the only one telling stories and shes talking to the king, the other two are groups of people and their talking amongst each other. Also, the 1001 Nights contains many more frame stories because of Scheherazade being able to tell never ending stories to the king. Unlike the 1001 Nights, the Canterbury Tales and Decamerons frame stories has its characters defying the Black Death by retreating to the country and telling tales. Chaucer's work differs from the other frame stories in that he provides strong interaction between the outer and inner structures. In the other works, the frame was just a crude device holding together essentially unrelated tales. Chaucer's tales are (with a few exceptions, since his poem is unfinished) perfectly suited to the characters of his pilgrims. In fact, the stories reveal in many ways the personalities of their tellers. The Wife of Bath's tale of what women most desire is a perfect foil to her character, expressed in the "General Prologue" and in the prologue to her tale. Another contribution of Chaucer's is the extreme diversity of tales, from the low-comedy fabliau of the Miller's story to the chivalric romance of the Knight's narrative. While, in prior works, the frame structure was quite separate from the stories themselves, Chaucer's pilgrims constantly move back and forth from tale to frame. A frame story is the result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones. Often this term is used interchangeably with both the literary technique and the larger story itself that contains the smaller ones, which are called periscopes, framed narratives or embedded narratives. The most famous example is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in which the

overarching frame narrative is the story of a band of pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. The band passes the time in a storytelling contest. The framed narratives are the individual stories told by the pilgrims who participate. Another example is Boccaccio's Decameron, in which the frame narrative consists of a group of Italian noblemen and women fleeing the plague, and the framed narratives consist of the tales they tell each other to pass the time while they await the disease's passing. It is also interesting to note that a number of the stories contained within the Decameron later appeared in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Decameron is also a work in which the capitalism, corruption of the clergy and humanistic thinking are reflected. Each story of the book reflects the overall changing society of the Renaissance. The 1001 Arabian Nights is probably the most famous Middle Eastern frame narrative. Here, in Bagdad, Scheherazade must delay her execution by beguiling her Caliph with a series of cliffhangers. The stories themselves, including such famous works as Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, are discrete in plot, and are related to each other only by the outer frame.