Sociological Analysis of A Thousand and One Nights from the "Discourse of Power" Perspective of Foucault

In the book One Thousand and One Nights, the will and the exercise of power do not flow downwards like a linear and axial pattern, but are implemented in the discourse container of the story. Regardless of the foundations of Foucault's thought about power, the king in this book is a symbol of authority; But with more precision, we find out that it is Shahrzad who dominates him with the use of soft power (telling stories). In fact, the author of the book One Thousand and One Nights, Willingly or Unwillingly - shows how a collection of anecdotes and stories, expressive and linguistic concepts and qualities as well as strategies, a powerful discourse; But at the same time, they create soft.

The research method in this article is a library, analysis and qualitative study, which, with highlighting on the discourse of Foucault's power, will be a qualitative critique and analysis of the stories in the book "One Thousand and One Nights". The premise is that the "One Thousand and One Nights" anecdotes, by emphasizing their function and social role in their context, represent the dominant discourse of "soft power." "Anecdote", as well as other members of the literary system so dominates the world of "discourse of power" with the transfer. In this article the critical analysis of the book A Thousand Nights with the approach of "discourse of power" Foucault will be explains.

The areas of power in One Thousand and One Nights are: soft power, power of narration and audience attraction, physical power and gender, activism and reactivity of language in One Thousand and One Nights, which are examined separately.soft powerBasic and raw attitudes towards power divide it into two types, soft and hard. According to this general division, it can be said that the peak of power is the place where soft power beats hard power, and this issue depends on the level of subtlety and techniques used in the components of soft power. Foucault states in the book Will to Know. In One Thousand and One Nights, the type of power is generally of the same type. The process of "soft power" is persuasion, response, and reasoning, while in hard power, it is duty, coercion, and coercion. The power of narration and audience attractionThe author of the book One Thousand and One Nights, using special and modern narrative techniques such as: suspense, description, response and the like, admits to the special reader that he thought about the discourse of power and its application, as if he thought like Foucault; Because during the story, it shows that the power is not a simple concept communicated and ordered from the top (the king) to the bottom (the subject), but sometimes the foundations of this traditional assumption are broken and the case is completely reversed. Just as in Foucault's theory, each person plays a role in the process of power by relying on his unique ability and knowledge, so are all the characters of One Thousand and One Nights.Physical strength and sexualityFoucault believes: there has always been resistance to the imposition of power on sexual desire. In other words, power and resistance in connection with gender have always been together. In the book One Thousand and One Nights, the body and its manifestations in general are considered as a medium for exercising and expressing power. In most of the stories in the book, the body and its manifestations are the medium through which power is exercised and people establish their control and dominance and then impose their thought system on the target person.Activism and reactivity of language in One Thousand and One NightsThe language of one thousand and one nights is no exception to this rule. The first prominent feature of the language of this work is its democratic character; Although this democracy eventually ends in dictatorship, which is the king and his absolute power; But the dictator himself provides the prerequisites for the emergence of this democracy.

In the works of Michel Foucault, the issue of power is one of the key discourses that is current everywhere and has a great role and importance in the organizations and relationships between institutions and social structures. The discourse of power considered by Foucault also exists in the institution of art, and since literature is one of the many types of art, it can be considered as a center for the formation of verbal and lexical power, and participates in power relations. Soft power in One Thousand and One Nights, an intangible and hidden thing; But it is discursive, comprehensive and structural. It means that the structure and context of the book is based on its foundations. This discourse of power is not an illusion or an illusion, and in this research some parts of it were shown. Getting involved and following that, receiving the text of the book depends on understanding and thinking about how power works in it; Of course, for special readers and critics. This book shows that literature in general and anecdotes and storytelling in particular can be used as a center of soft power to play a cultural and constructive role in society while pushing back and mastering hard power and violence. Until the end of the book One Thousand and One Nights, the "soft power" discourse resists the king's hard power and with its special techniques, the most prominent of which are narration and suspense, becomes a dominant and victorious discourse. Also, the structure of power revolves around the story, which is in the hands of various characters. This structure is always dynamic and fluid and contains layers of soft power under the influence of the ability of narrators and especially the main narrator, Shahrzad. The description of women's beauty, attractiveness and fitness along with gender at the beginning of the stories is considered to be one of the areas that play a major role in the power relations in the book One Thousand and One Nights. A power that softens hard power and softens violence. Expressive and literary tools and artistic techniques, as well as narrative verbal intelligence and emphasis on the relationships between the parts of speech in order to use descriptive, exclamation, and emotional emphases and pauses, have all caused a network of soft power to form, which in Finally, it calms the king and prevents him from using violence and applying hard power.