Orientalism

Paper no: E-E 305- C- Post Colonial  Literature

Topic: Orientalism

Name: Gohil Hetalba

Roll No: 5

Class: M.A, Sem-1

Submitted To:

Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English

Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar

 

 

 

 

About Author

                 Edward said was born in 1935, 1 November and died in 25 September. He was a Palestinian American literary theorist and advocate for palestailian rights. He was university professor of English and comparative literature of Columbus University and abounding figure in postcolsnialism Robert frisk desired him as the Palestinians                                 

                   He was best known for his books” Oriantalism       “which was published in 1978.said were an influential cultural critic and author. The book orientation placed him as an international author. the book presented the idea of author that how western study the eastern culture said contended that orients scholarship was continue to inextricalsly tied to the imperialist societies that produced it making much of the work inherently politicized, servile to power and there for suspect sad’s oriental’s and following works proved influential in literature theory and criticism and continue to influence in several other fields in humanities. Said come to discuss and vigorously debate the issue of orients with scholars in the field of history and area studies. Many of them disagreed with his thesis including most famously beanery Lewis said tries to point out that how western looks towards the east. In his most famous book orients, said claim a “subtle and persistent content prejudice against arbor people and their culture”

 

What is Orientalism?

The author tries to define orients in many ways.

 1_) Orients are a way of coming terms with the orient that is based on the orient’s special place in European western experience

2_) Orients is an academic one. Anyone who teaches writes about or researches the orient and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist sociologist and historian or philologist general aspect is an orients and what he or she does in orients.

3_) Orients is a western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over orient

4_) Orients is a style of thought based upon an anthological and epistemological destination made between the orient and occident

5_) A way of coming to terms with the orient that is based on the orient’s special place in European western experience.

6_) A distribution of geo political awareness into aesthetic scholarly, economic, sociological, historical and philological texts.

 

Chapter -1

1_)The scope of orients draws a large circle around all the demonisms of the subject both in terms of historical and experience and in terms of philosophical and political themes.

Chapter -2

2_)Oriental’s structures and re-structures  attempts to trace the development of modern orients by a broadly chronological description and also by the description of a set of devices common to the work of important poets ,artists and scholars.

Chapter-3

3_)”Orientisms Now “begins where its producers left off at around 1870.this are the period of areal expansion into the orient and it culminates in world war 2.the very last section of chapter three characterizes the shift from British and French to American hegemony.

 

The Scope of orientalism?

       The orient is integral part of European material, civilization and culture. Said says that oriental’s means interdependent. The European culture gained in strength and identify by setting itself off against the orient as assort of surrogate and even underground itself. As vice’s great observation that “orient” and “occident” are manmade. As much as west itself, the orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought imagery and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the west, east was only a career for westerner .The relationship of power, of dominating of varying degree of a complex hegemony. The title “Asia and Western Dominance “of K.M .Panikar also suggest this.

        European uses oriental’s to define themselves .Seaward said says that euro pea divide the world into two parts.

 1 East-West

2 Orient-Occident

3 Uncivilized-Civilized.

     The European tries to prove themselves s superior compared to orient .They think that it was their duty to civilize the uncivilized one.Orientalism was written to show European-American power over the orient and mystification of the others. It is occident which control oriental.

     The power is not one way .It is a two way process. Like in India, British were ruled over India because we love them. They gave the words like “Bombay “means boom-good and bay –without any problem ship come and the word is “Palusi” that becomes “Palusi”. The west thought that east needed colonial .The oriental were incapable of running their own government .The European thought that they had the right to represent the orient in the west. In doing so, they shaped the Orientals, the way they perceived them or in other words they try to oriental sing the orient.

      Due to this thinking, various teams have been sent to the east where the orient lists silently observed the Orientals by living with them. They generalized everything with their perceptive and context no matter if it is the irrational action of an individual .Like in our indie, oriental’s come indoor and observed our culture and they looked it with their perceptive.

     Another feature of oriental was that the culture of the Orientals was explained to the European audience by linking them to the western culture

For example, Islam was made into Mohammad’s because Mohammad was the founder of this religion and since religion of Christ was called Christianity. Thus Islam should be called Mohammad’s... The point to be noted here is that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completely western created term, and to which the Muslims had no say at all

 

     The most important use of oriental to the Europeans was that they defined themselves by defining the Orientals. For example, qualities such as lazy, irrational, uncivilized, crudeness were related to the Orientals, and automatically the Europeans became active, rational, civilized, sophisticated. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, it was very necessary for the orient lists to generalize the culture of the orients.

 Orientals is never far from what Denys Hay has called the idea of European.

Orientalism Structures and Restructures

,      Edward Said points the slight change in the attitude of the Europeans towards the Orientals. The Orientals were really publicized in the European world especially through their literary work .The orients were presented to with the color of the oriental’s or other writers perception Actually it was this purity of the Orientals that made them inferior to the clever, witty, diplomatic, far-sighted European; thus it was their right to rule and study such an innocent race. The Europeans said that these people were too naive to deal with the cruel world, and that they needed the European fatherly role to the Europeans gave assist them.

      The Europeans gave   justification that they were meant to rule the Orientals. Since they have developed sooner than the Orientals as a nation that shows that they were biologically superior and second thing is that the Europeans who discovered the orients not the orients who discovered the Europeans. Edward then also explains how the two most renowned orient lists of the 19th century, namely Silvestre de Saucy and Ernest Renan worked and gives rise to new oriental’s. He says that Sacy organized the whole thing by arranging the information in such a way that it was also useful for the future oriental. Renan believed that the science of oriental’s and the science of philology have a very important relation  and after Renan this idea was given a lot attention and many future orient lists worked of in its line.

Orientalism now.

    There was a changing circumstance of the world politics and changing approach to oriental’s in the 20thcentury. The earlier orient lists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas the new orients lived with them as if they were one of them. This wasn’t out of appreciation of their lifestyle but was to know more about the orients in order to rule them properly.

For example: Lawrence of Arabia was one of such orienatlists.

    Oriental’s took a more liberal stance towards most of its subjects; but Islamic oriental did not enjoy this status. There were constant attacks to show Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most famous Islamic oriental of this time.

     After World War 1 the centre of oriental’s changed from Europe to USA. All the orient lists studied the Orientals to assist their government to come up with policies for dealing with the orient countries. With the end of World War 2, all the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more Orientals and occidents, but this was surely not really. Western prejudice towards eastern countries was still tries to generalize most of the eastern countries of it.

 For example: Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Where as the Muslims were always considered to be terrorists. This show that even with increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in the people of the developed countries.

Conclusion

   Edward Said concludes his book by saying that he is not saying that the orient lists should not make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary at the first place is something which should not be done.

 “I urge everyone to join in and leave the field of values, definition and culture uncontested”