Name:
Budhiditya Shankar Das
Course:
M.A (English)
Topic: Orientalism
Semester:
03
Roll
No. : 07
Paper
No.: 11
Paper
Name: The Post-Colonial Literature
Submitted
to: Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Orientalism
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 post colonialism Robert frisk desired him as
the Palestinians. (Hetalba)
He was best known for his books “ Orientalism” 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” (Hetalba)
Orientalism
Orientalism Edward said is a canonical text of cultural
studies in which he has challenged the concept of oriental’s or the difference
between east and west, as he puts it he says that with the start of European
colonization the European come in contact with the lesser developed countries
of the east. They found their civilization and culture them exotic, and
established the science of orientalism, or the people from these exotic
civilizations. The main thing for the European visitor was a European
representation of the orient and it’s had a privileged communal significance
for the journalist and his French readers. American will not feel quite the
same about the orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very
differently with the east, china and Japan mainly. Unlike the Americans, the
French and British less so the German, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians
and have had a long tradition of what I shall be calling orientalism, a way of
coming to terms with the experience. The orient is not only adjustment to
Europe, it is also the place of Europe‘s greatest and richest and oldest
colonies, the source of its civilization and language, its cultural constant,
and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the other. (Choudhary)
Edward said argues that the
Europeans divided the world into parts. The east and the west or the occident
and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an
artificial boundary, and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us
or their and ours. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some
particular attributes, and whether the Orientals weren’t the occident’s were
the Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the Orientals
and the justified their colonization by this concept. They said that it was
their duty towards the ward to civilize the uncivilized ward. The main problem,
however, arose when the European started generalizing the attributes they
associated with Orientals, and started parting these artificial characteristics
associated with Orientals in their western world through their scientific
reports, literary work and other media sources. WHAT HAPPENED WAS THAT IT
CREATED ACERTAIN IMAGE ABOUT THE ORIENTAS IN THEIR European mind and doing
that infused bias in the European attitude toward the Orientals. This prejudice
was also found in the orientalists and all their scientific research and
reports were under the influence of this. The generalized attributes associated
with the Orientals can be seen even today. For example, the Arabs are defined
as uncivilized people and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist. Edward
said explains how the science of orientalism developed and how the Orientals
started considering the Orientals as non human beings. The Orientals divided
the world in to parts by using the concept of ours and theirs. An imaginary
geographical line was down between what was ours and what was theirs. The
orients were regarded as uncivilized people and the western said that since
they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize people those people
and in order to achieve their goal, they had to colonize and rule the orients.
They said that the orients themselves were incapable of running their own
government. The Europeans also through that they had the right to represent the
Orientals in the west all by themselves. In doing so, shaped the Orientals the
way they perceived them or in other wards they were reinitializing the orient.
Various teams have been sent to the east were oriental is silently observed to
the Orientals by living with them and everything the west .This resulted in the
generalization whatever was seen by the projected to the civilized world of the
west. This resulted in the generalization whatever was seen by the oriental
action of an individual.
The
most important use of oriental ism to the European was that they defined
themselves by defining the Orientals. FOR EXA qualities such as lazy irrational
uncivilized crudeness were related to the Orientals and automatically the
Europeans become active retinal civilized sophisticated. Thus in order to
achieve this goal. It was very necessary for the orientalists to generalize the
culture of the orients.
Then Edward said goes on to talk about two
other scholars’ massing and Gibb. Through massing on bit liberal with
orientalist and often tried to protect their right, there was still inherited
biased found in him his work, with the changing world situation especially
after world war orientalism took a more liberal stance toward s most of its
subjects but Islamic orientalism did not enjoy this status .There were constant
attacks to show Islam as religion.
Edward
said concludes his book by saying that the orientalist should not make
generalization or they should include the write perspective too, but creating a
boundary at the first place is something which should be not alone.
Conclusion:
Orientalism by Edward W. Said is a critique of the study of the Orient and
its ideas. Said examines the historical, cultural, and political views of the
East that are held by the West, and examines how they developed and where they
came from. He basically traces the various views and perceptions back to the
colonial period of British and European domination in the Middle East. During
this period, the United States was not yet a world power and didn't enter into
anything in the East yet. The views and perceptions that came into being were
basically the result of the British and French. The British had colonies in the
East at this time; the French did not but were trying to acquire some.
Choudhary, Divya. Blog. 31 October 2016.
<http://divyachoudhary19.blogspot.in/2016/10/orientalism.html>.
Hetalba, Gohil. Blog.
24 November 2011.
<http://gohilhetalba052011.blogspot.in/2011/11/orientalism.html>.
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