ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES

Ali Baba and his elder brother Cassim are the sons of a merchant. After the death of their father, the
greedy Cassim marries a wealthy woman and becomes well-to-do, building on their father's business—
but Ali Baba marries a poor woman and settles into the trade of a woodcutter.
One day Ali Baba is at work collecting and cutting firewood in the forest, and he happens to overhear a
group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store. The treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed
by magic. It opens on the words "iftah ya simsim" (commonly written as "Open Sesame" in English), and
seals itself on the words "Close, Simsim" ("Close Sesame"). When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters
the cave himself, and takes some of the treasure home.

Ali Baba and his wife borrow his sister-in-law's scales to weigh this new wealth of gold coins.
Unbeknownst to them, she puts a blob of wax in the scales to find out what Ali Baba is using them for, as
she is curious to know what kind of grain her impoverished brother-in-law needs to measure. To her shock,
she finds a gold coin sticking to the scales and tells her husband, Ali Baba's rich and greedy brother,
Cassim. Under pressure from his brother, Ali Baba is forced to reveal the secret of the cave. Cassim goes
to the cave and enters with the magic words, but in his greed and excitement over the treasures, he forgets
the magic words to get back out again. The Thieves find him there, and kill him. When his brother does not
come back, Ali Baba goes to the cave to look for him, and finds the body, quartered and with each piece
displayed just inside the entrance of the cave as a warning to anyone else who might try to enter.
Ali Baba brings the body home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl in Cassim's household,
with the task of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases
medicines from an apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill. Then, she finds an old Tailor known as
Baba Mustafa whom she pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassim's house. There, overnight, the Tailor stitches
the pieces of Cassim's body back together, so that no one will be suspicious. Ali Baba and his family are
able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyone asking awkward questions.
The Thieves, finding the body gone, realize that yet another person must know their secret, and set out
to track him down. One of the Thieves goes down to the town and comes across Baba Mustafa, who
mentions that he has just sewn a dead man's body back together. Realizing that the dead man must have
been the Thieves' victim, the Thief asks Baba Mustafa to lead the way to the house where the deed was
performed. The Tailor is blindfolded again, and in this state he is able to retrace his steps and find the
house. The Thief marks the door with a symbol. The plan is for the other thieves to come back that night
and kill everyone in the house. However, the Thief has been seen by Morgiana and she, loyal to her master,
foils his plan by marking all the houses in the neighborhood with a similar marking. When the forty Thieves
return that night, they cannot identify the correct house and their leader in a furious rage, kills the
unsuccessful Thief. The next day, another Thief revisits Baba Mustafa and tries again, only this time, a
chunk is chipped out of the stone step at Ali Baba's front door. Again Morgiana foils the plan by making
similar chips in all the other doorsteps. The second Thief is killed for his failure as well. At last, the leader
of the Thieves goes and looks for himself. This time, he memorizes every detail he can of the exterior of Ali
Baba's house.
The Chief of the Thieves pretends to be an oil merchant in need of Ali Baba's hospitality, bringing with
him mules loaded with thirty-eight oil jars, one filled with oil, the other thirty-seven hiding the other remaining
thieves. Once Ali Baba is asleep, the Thieves plan to kill him. Again, Morgiana discovers and foils the plan,
killing the thirty-seven Thieves in their oil jars by pouring boiling oil on them. When their leader comes to
rouse his men, he discovers that they are all dead, and escapes. The next morning Morgiana tells Ali Baba
about the thieves in the jars, they bury them and Ali Baba shows his gratitude by giving Morgiana her
freedom.
To exact revenge, after some time the Chief of Thieves establishes himself as a merchant, befriends Ali
Baba's son (who is now in charge of the late Cassim's business), and is invited to dinner at Ali Baba's
house. However the Thief is recognized by Morgiana, who performs a dance with a dagger for the diners
and plunges it into his heart when he is off his guard. Ali Baba is at first angry with Morgiana, but when he
finds out the Thief tried to kill him, he is extremely grateful and rewards Morgiana by marrying her to his
son. Ali Baba is then left as the only one knowing the secret of the treasure in the cave and how to access
it. Thus, the story ends happily for everyone except Cassim and the forty Thieves.
1. At the start of this lesson, what were your initial feelings and ideas about it? Did you
like story? Was it exciting or too predictable? How did you find its ending?
2. The magic words “Open, Sesame” and “Close,Sesame” that seal the cave of treasures
have become popular expressions. How do modern people use this expression in
their daily conversations?
3. How were Ali Baba’ and Cassim’s lives different? Which of these two characters do
you prefer? Explain your answer and cite instances in the story that support your
choice of character.
4. How is each of these themes – greed, loyalty and bravery shown in the story?
5. As reflected in this story and in the speech at the start of this lesson, what are the
personality traits of Saudi Arabs as a people?

Before listening to the selection let us first define the meaning of the following words that you
might encounter in the story.
1. Seal-
2. Awkward-
3. Apothecary-
4. Foil-
5. Impoverish-

WRITING A CRITICAL REVIEW

Purpose of a Critical Review

A critical review is a writing task that asks you to summarize and evaluate a text. The critical
review can be of a book, a chapter, or a journal article. Writing the critical review usually requires
you to read the selected text in detail and to also read other related texts so that you can present
a fair and reasonable evaluation of the selected text.
requires you to question the information and opinions in a text and present your evaluation

What is meant by critical?

At university, to be critical does not mean to criticize in a negative manner. Rather it requires
you to question the information and opinions in a text and present your evaluation or judgment of
the text. To do this well, you should attempt to understand the topic from different perspectives
(i.e. read related texts) and in relation to the theories, approaches and frameworks in your course.

What is meant by evaluation or judgment?

Here you decide the strengths and weaknesses of a text. This is usually based on specific
criteria. Evaluating requires an understanding of not just the content of the text, but also an
understanding of a text’s purpose, the intended audience and why it is structured the way it is.

What is meant by analysis?

Analysis requires separating the content and concepts of a text into their main components
and then understanding how these interrelate, connect and possibly influence each other.

Structure of a Critical Review

Critical reviews, both short (one page) and long (four pages), usually have a similar structure.
Check your assignment instructions for formatting and structural specifications. Headings are
usually optional for longer reviews and can be helpful for the reader.

Introduction
The length of an introduction is usually one paragraph for a journal article review and two or
three paragraphs for a longer book review. Include a few opening sentences that announce the
author(s) and the title, and briefly explain the topic of the text. Present the aim of the text and
summarize the main finding or key argument. Conclude the introduction with a brief statement of
your evaluation of the text. This can be a positive or negative evaluation or, as is usually the case,
a mixed response.

Summary
Present a summary of the key points along with a limited number of examples. You can also
briefly explain the author’s purpose/intentions throughout the text and you may briefly describe
how the text is organized. The summary should only make up about a third of the critical review.

Critique
The critique should be a balanced discussion and evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses
and notable features of the text. Remember to base your discussion on specific criteria. Good
reviews also include other sources to support your evaluation (remember to reference).
You can choose how to sequence your critique. Here are some examples to get you started:
 Present the most important to least important conclusions you make about the text.
 If your critique is more positive than negative, then present the negative points first and the
positive last.
 If your critique is more negative than positive, then present the positive points first and the
negative last.

 If there are both strengths and weaknesses for each criterion you use, you need to decide your
overall judgment. For example, you may want to comment on a key idea in the text and have both
positive and negative comments. You can begin by stating what is good about the idea; then
concede and explain how it is limited in some way. While this example shows a mixed evaluation,
as a whole you are probably being more negative than positive.
 In long reviews, you can address each criterion you choose in a paragraph, including both
negative and positive points. For very short critical reviews (one page or less) where your
comments will be briefer, include a paragraph of positive comments and another of negative
comments.

You can also include recommendations on how the text can be improved in terms of ideas,
research approach; theories or frameworks used can also be included in the critique section.

Conclusion
This is usually a very short paragraph.
  Restate your overall opinion of the text.
  Briefly present recommendations.

If necessary some further explanation of your judgment can be included. This can make your
critique sound fair and reasonable.

References
If you have used other sources in you review you should also include a list of references at
the end of the review.
 “THE CAT”
by Zygmunt Frankel
Published in "The European"

H e lay on the bunk in his cell, smoking a cigarette. The day had been hot, but now, with the

dusk falling, a pleasant breeze had sprung up and was coming in from the courtyard, along the
corridor, and into his cell. The old prison was very much like the ones in cowboy movies. The door
of his cell, as well as the one at the end of the corridor were steel frames with iron bars less than
twenty centimetres apart; too close for even the thinnest man to squeeze through, but ample for
a cat. One could see through the bars, talk with the guards and the prisoners in the other cells,
and be disturbed by someone snoring at night, and the barred doors made the prison airy.
It was much better than the foreign prisons he had read about, with solid doors, peepholes,
and electric bulbs burning the whole night long. Although the local revolution modelled itself on
the Russian one to some extent, it did not have the means to imitate Lubyanka. The revolution
was also milder in other respects. A political prisoner usually had done something against the
regime, be it only grumbling in public. The interrogations were mostly carried out without torture.
Although no public or journalists were admitted to the more serious political trials, the prisoner
had the right to defend himself, and, in case of a death sentence - these, unfortunately, were
rather common and mostly undeserved - the condemned man had the right to appeal to the
President, although in most cases it only delayed the execution by a few days.
The prisoner finished his cigarette, put it out in an empty sardine tin which served him as
ashtray, sat on his bed, and looked at the door again. The spaces between the bars were fine,
even for the largest cat to pass through, and the door at the end of the corridor was the same. In
the small rectangular cobbled courtyard where they took their daily walks and where they shot
condemned prisoners at dawn, a couple of skinny young trees, hardly more than saplings, grew
by the wall on the right, a few of the thin branches reaching the top of the wall; nothing to support
a man, but good enough for a cat. It was not the wall where they shot people; that one was
opposite it, at right angle to the door. On days following an execution, of which they had heard
every word and shot through the barred doors, walking in a circle during their daily exercise, they
would look furtively for traces of blood on the cobblestones or bullet marks on the wall, but there
weren't any; the courtyard would be thoroughly hosed down as soon as the body was taken away,
and the holes in the wall plastered over and whitewashed. The prisoner, himself a likely candidate
for an execution, thought calmly that an old mattress or two propped against the wall would spare
them the need for constant repairs, but in a backward country one could not expect a revolution
to bring instant efficiency.
His decision to change into a cat rather than some other small creature in case an escape
became necessary due to a death sentence or a long prison term was reached after considerable
reflection. A mouse or a rat would run too great a risk in a town with a lot of cats, and even if it
got out of the town safely, the distance to the border - some twenty kilometres - might be too much
for it, and the danger still there: wild cats, foxes, coyotes, snakes, hawks by day and owls by night.
As a cat, he would only need a couple of days to reach and cross the border and change back
into man, and it was just as well. The Indian witch-doctor had warned him that if it took too long,
the animal body would start taking over the human mind; he would find it increasingly difficult and
finally impossible to change back, and spend the rest of his life as an animal with an animal's
mind. When he died, his body would also remain that of an animal, which would not be the case
if he died shortly after the metamorphosis.
It would be fastest and easiest to cross the border as a bird, preferably of prey so as to be
safe of predators; but, apart from the fact that farmers sometimes shot at birds of prey, he wasn't
sure about flying. On both previous occasions, the first under the witch-doctor's guidance and,
after his return from the expedition, on his own, he changed into mammals, a monkey and a fox.
This time, with so much at stake, he didn't want to introduce new and unknown factors.
A dog would not be able to get over the wall, and might be shot on suspicion of hydrophobia. A
cat was best. Behind the wall with the two trees was a large garden which he knew well. It
surrounded the now confiscated villa of his friend the judge who had placed most of his money in
a Swiss bank before escaping to Miami when the revolution broke out. The judge had had
problems with old regime as well by always trying to be just and fair, but he knew it wouldn't help
him with the new one. The judge had tried to talk him into leaving together, keeping a seat for him
on the little chartered plane until the last broke out. The judge had had problems with old regime
as well by always trying to be just and fair, but he knew it wouldn't help him with the new one. The
judge had tried to talk him into leaving together, keeping a seat for him on the little chartered plane
until the last moment, but he decided to stay, see what would happen, and even offer his services
to the revolution if it turned out well. It showed signs of doing so for a while and then degenerated
into a dictatorship backed by terror, and he had just about decided to follow his friend the judge
into exile when he was arrested. They did not have anything against him as an anthropologist but
he had also been a friend of the judge and that was enough nowadays. But there were fascinating
things to be still discovered in anthropology and primitive magic, and he already knew enough not
to let himself be shot in the prime of life.
Something the witch-doctor once told him stirred uneasily in his memory. It was right after his
first, successful, change into a monkey and back. He was bubbling with enthusiasm about the
possibilities, and the old witch-doctor, his face lined and wise, listened to him quietly and then
said: "Well, not quite. The possibilities are indeed great but not unlimited; no magic can change
one's destiny beyond a certain extent. A warrior who is to be killed in battle will not escape his
fate by changing into an animal; he will still be killed by an arrow, and the hunter might even turn
out to be the same man who was supposed to kill him in battle." But the prisoner dismissed the
unease without much difficulty. He was a Westerner, and destiny to him was not all that rigid; one
could shape it to a much greater extent than the primitive fatalistic tribes imagined.
There were steps in the corridor and the sergeant, accompanied by a soldier with a rifle,
stopped by his door and unlocked it. "The captain wants to see you in his office," he said. "Is it
the sentence already?" the prisoner thought as he walked between the two soldiers. It was quite
possible. His interrogation ended almost two weeks before, and the military courts worked fast.
The captain got up from behind his desk when the prisoner was brought in. There was another
man there, a civilian in a sober grey suit, standing, with his hands behind his back, a little to one
side of the captain's desk. He looked like an official visitor, probably of a high rank.
The captain took from the desk a document with a large seal and several signatures and
began to read it aloud. It was the death sentence. The prisoner has been found guilty of
cooperation with the old reactionary regime, of anti-revolutionary propaganda, and of failing to
prevent the escape of one of the oppressors of the people (his friend the judge). He had three
days in which to submit an appeal to the President of the Republic if he so wished.
He signed a statement that the sentence has been announced to him and that he understood
it. He said that yes, he would like to avail himself of the opportunity to appeal to the President, in
the hope that the President's generosity and kindness would make him reduce the sentence. By
all means, the captain said kindly; he would have paper and pen delivered to his cell that very
evening.
Back in his cell, the prisoner began to prepare for the metamorphosis. It was mainly mental.
He had to bring himself - this would take two or three days - into the state of absolute belief that
at the end of that period he would change into a cat. Very few people could do it, and it was only
after he had been with the tribe for some weeks that the witch-doctor began to suspect that this
white man who came from a different world to learn their customs might be one of them. The
physical part of the preparation was easy - actually easier in prison than outside. It consisted
mainly of eating very little, practically fasting towards the end, and of not doing anything to distract
the mind from its task. The final part - the silent incantations, the spells, the names of gods - were
merely means to finally plunge the mind so deeply into the conviction that the body followed suit.
When the block of writing paper, the fountain pen, a candle, and an extra packet of cigarettes
were brought to him with his supper, he thanked the guard and asked whether he could have just
plain bread, preferably dry, and weak tea, or even just water, for the next couple of days,
explaining that his stomach was upset and that diet was the best thing for it. The guard asked
whether he would like to see the doctor. No, he said, it was nothing; he's always had a nervous,
sensitive stomach, and today, what with the death sentence, it was quite entitled to act up a little.
But the whole thing was a misunderstanding and he was confident that the President, who was a
just and wise ruler, would put it right as soon as he has read his appeal.
He finished the appeal the same evening, leaving the couple of corrected drafts in the writing
block to show how hard he had worked on it, and gave the final copy, together with the writing
block, the pen, and the remainder of the candle to the sergeant, who promised to give the petition
to the captain first thing in the morning. He estimated that he now had at least four days at his
disposal - two for the letter to reach the president and two more for the rejection to arrive - and
four days were more than enough.
He went to bed early and before falling asleep lay there for a long time with his eyes closed
imagining himself as a cat: passing through the iron bars, climbing a tree, crossing the garden,
travelling through fields and woods, perhaps catching a bird or a mouse if hungry, and drinking
from streams. When he finally fell asleep he managed to get a lot of this into his dreams as well.
In the morning he was already feeling light-headed, in a sort of trance, already beginning to feel
and think like a cat. A couple of times he even stretched and yawned like one. It was a familiar
feeling. His second metamorphosis had been easier than the first - the witch-doctor told him that
one improved with practice - and he felt that this one was going to be a success too.
On the third night he was ready. He had slept through most of the afternoon and awoke at
dusk feeling fresh and strong. The prison was slowly settling for the night. Someone was snoring
lightly in one of the cells. The guard on duty was seated behind the table at the end of the corridor,
reading a paper and smoking a cigarette. He sat sideways to the corridor, glancing at it only from
time to time. Even if he noticed a cat slinking along the corridor towards the courtyard door he
might wonder what it was looking for, but it was extremely unlikely that he would fire at it, and if
he did, even less likely that he would hit it.
The prisoner undressed except for his underwear and, once under the blanket, removed his
vest and underpants as well. The blanket was coarse and not very clean, and it was a little chilly
to lie there naked, but he did not want to have to disengage himself from the underwear
afterwards.
The prison was silent now, with the snores from a cell at the end of the corridor barely audible.
He pulled the blanket over his head and closed his eyes. In the double darkness, of the cell and
the blanket, silent incantations began to flow. To their rhythm, his mind gradually reduced
everything to the world of a small, four-legged animal. Time was passing but he didn't know how
much. He became dizzy for a while, with strange but well-remembered sensations passing
through his body. Then the flow of incantations and trance gradually slowed down, stopped,
settled. His skin did not feel the coarseness of the blanket any more. He was also warmer. He
moved his limbs cautiously. His claws bit into the blanket and he retracted them.
He crawled slowly towards the edge of the blanket, peered out, and listened. The prison was
dark and quiet. The cell now loomed large and tall, and the bed was high above the floor. He
could see much better in the dark than he did before. He listened a little longer, then jumped down
and hid under the bed. He noticed the color of his fur: it was grey, with dark stripes, and a light,
almost white belly. The bars of the cell would now let him through without any difficulty. He peered
into the corridor. The guard, in profile, was nodding over his paper.
Silently, he passed through the bars of the door, glided along the corridor, passed between
bars again, turned right, out of sight, and crouched under the wall. There was a full moon shining
onto the deserted courtyard. His sight was very keen. He moved along the wall and climbed the
first of the two trees. A branch took him right to the top of the wall. He looked at the garden on the
other side of the wall for a while. It was as he remembered it except that it was rather neglected.
He wondered whether anyone lived in the villa now - perhaps one of the new officials - or whether
it was still unoccupied. He jumped into the garden. Now the most difficult part was behind him.
He moved among some trees, then began to cross a large moonlit stretch of the lawn towards
some bushes at the back of the garden where there was a low easily passable slat fence, behind
which the countryside was practically beginning.
He did not see the large tall shape of the dog detach itself from the shadow of the villa; noticed
it only after it had covered half the distance between them, loping fast and silently, trying to cut
him off from the fence. He hissed and took off. The dog chasing him was a large hound, obviously
trained not to growl or bark while attending to business. Their paths were converging. He saw that
he might have difficulty reaching the fence before the dog caught up with him, but any change of
direction might waste precious moments. If the worst came to the worst he could turn around and
counterattack, using his teeth, claws, screech, and spittle to confuse the dog and reach the fence.
With a dozen yards still to go, he heard the shuffle of the dog's feet right behind him and felt its
breath on his neck. He leaped and, turning around in mid-air, gave the most frightening screech
he was capable of, and struck. His claws ripped one side of the dog's face just as the dog hit him
with one shoulder, with all its weight and speed behind the impact. The cat rolled over, regaining
his footing almost at once, but for one brief moment the scruff of his neck became exposed and
he felt the teeth go in. The he was flying through the air being shaken left and right while the teeth
were going in deeper. Then, very clearly, he felt his neck snap.
The captain stood in his office, but facing the desk this time, without his pistol, and between
two soldiers. The official who had been present at the reading of the prisoner's sentence sat
behind the desk.
"I am sorry to see that the psychiatrist's report pronounces you perfectly sane, captain," he
said. "We were very satisfied with your work to date, and saw a good career for you in the service
of the revolution. It is all the more sad having to tell you that your situation looks hopeless. If there
are two things that the president hates more than anything else it is people taking the law into
their own hands and sadism. The prisoner's naked body was found in the garden of your villa.
The wounds in the neck were inflicted with some pointed though not particularly sharp tool like a
pick or a pitchfork. Your dog can't be blamed for it because the size of the wounds is such that an
animal with teeth large enough to inflict them would have to be larger than the victim, and we
don't have any lions or tigers around here. The only logical explanation is that you took the
prisoner from his cell at night and murdered him in your garden by repeatedly stabbing him in the
neck and then breaking it."
"But the guard on duty that night..."
"Is also under arrest. He either participated, or had fallen asleep, or you drugged him or bribed
him or talked him into keeping quiet; we shall find out which. In the meantime the president is
disgusted with the whole thing and unless you can come up with some really convincing proof of
your innocence, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes, captain."

Write a critical review of the short story below. Make sure to apply your knowledge of the previous
lesson and the review guide provided in the earlier part of this lesson. Follow the format of the
review.
A Critical Review Format
“THROUGH MY LENS”

Introduction
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________

Summary
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________

Critique
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Conclusion
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
______

Reference/s
____________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________