Aladdin in the Magic Garden, an illustration by Max Liebert from Ludwig Fulda's Aladdin und die Wunderlampe

Discover best deals on toys and games at low prices! Lots to choose from: educational, solider toys, electric toys, diecast, games. Perfect holiday gifts!

Aladdin

more...

Home

Beanies

Construction Toys & Kits

Creative Toys/ Activities

Diecast & Vehicles

Educational Toys

Electronic Pets

Fast Food/ Cereal/ Sweets...

Games

Jigsaws & Puzzles

Model Kits

Other Toys & Games

Outdoor Toys & Activities

Pre-School/ Young Children

Radio-Controlled

Scalextric & Slot Car

Soft Toys/ Stuffed Animals

Steam

TV & Film Character Toys

Film/ Disney Characters

101 Dalmatians

A Bug's Life

Aladdin

Austin Powers

Babe

Barbie

E. T.

Goofy

Nightmare Before Christmas

Other Film/ Disney...

Peter Pan

Pinocchio

Pluto

Shrek

Tarzan

Vintage 60s/ 70s/ 80s

Winnie The Pooh

TV Characters

Toy Soldiers

Vintage/ Classic Toys

Wargames & Role-Playing

Aladdin (a corruption of the Arabic name 'Alā 'ad-Dīn, Arabic: علاء الدين literally "nobility of faith") is one of the tales with a Syrian origin in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, and one of the most famous in Western culture.

Popular perception places the setting in an Arabic country rather than in an imagined China.

Synopsis

The story concerns an impoverished young ne'er-do-well named Aladdin, who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb in the far west, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin's late father; to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin keeps the lamp for himself, and discovers that it summons a surly djinn that is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp. With the aid of the djinn, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries princess Badroulbadour.

The sorcerer returns and is able to get his hands on the lamp by tricking Aladdin's wife, who is unaware of the lamp's importance. Aladdin discovers a lesser, polite djinn who is summoned by a ring loaned to him by the sorcerer but forgotten during the double-cross. Assisted by the lesser djinn, Aladdin recovers his wife and the lamp.

Meaning

The theme of a trickster being outwitted by another trickster of lowly birth is a widespread motif in fables.

One Jungian view of the story of Aladdin would hold it as a classic example of a "rags-to-riches" story. This type of story presents in three parts: from lowly beginnings, a protagonist achieves an initial success in life, traverses a major crisis in which all seems lost, and finally triumphs over adversity to achieve more stable and enduring success. This final success is only possible because the hero has learned a degree of inner maturity by going through the crisis. Aladdin's first success came too easily and was not based on his own efforts, but the genies who helped him; his despair at losing the princess and the palace to the evil sorcerer takes him to a spiritual place at which he needs to arrive before he can develop true strength and wholeness by making his own efforts to succeed. The wholeness he finally achieves is symbolized by the re-establishment of the relationship with the princess. Under this view, one of the reasons for the enduring interest of the Aladdin story lies in our often unconscious recognition of the importance of its underlying meaning. We recognize our own struggles to grow and develop in Aladdin's journey.