Orientalism: Dr. R. Soundararajan

Elevating

Dr. R. Soundararajan
Associate Professor
PG & Research Dept. of English
NATIONAL COLLEGE, TRICHY-1

Orientalism
Observing
Learning
Understanding

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Applying
Contents
Literary Theory?
Different Schools?
Post-Colonialism?
Power Hegemony & Literature?
Orientalism?
Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the
nature of literature and of the methods for
analyzing literature.
"Literary theory" is the body of ideas and
methods we use in the practical reading of
literature.
Literary theory refers not to the meaning of a
work of literature but to the theories that
reveal what literature can mean.
Therefore, Literary Theory is a tool for

understanding literature.
1.Literary theory
- formulates the relationship between author and work;
- develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary
study, both from the standpoint of the biography of the author
and an analysis of their thematic presence within texts.
- offers varying approaches for understanding the role of historical
context in interpretation as well as the relevance of linguistic
and unconscious elements of the text.
2. Literary theory refers to any principles derived from internal
analysis of literary texts or from knowledge external to the text that
can be applied in multiple interpretive situations.
3. Modern literary theory gradually emerges in Europe (west) during
the nineteenth century.
Broad schools of theory

historical and biographical criticism
New Criticism
structuralism
post-structuralism
formalism,
Russian formalism
Marxism
feminism
French feminism
post-colonialism
new historicism
deconstruction
reader-response criticism
psychoanalytic criticism.
Post-colonialism
"Postcolonial Criticism" investigates the
relationships between colonizers and
colonized in the period post-colonization.
companys sub contents.
"Ethnic Studies," sometimes referred to as
"Minority Studies," has an obvious historical
relationship with "Postcolonial Criticism" in
that Euro-American imperialism and
colonization in the last four centuries, whether
external (empire) or internal (slavery) has been
directed at recognizable ethnic groups.
Post-colonialism
Post-colonial critics are concerned with
literature produced by colonial powers
and works produced by those who
were/are colonized. Postcolonial theory
looks at issues of power, economics,
politics, religion, and culture and how
these elements work in relation to
colonial hegemony (dominant) (western
colonizers controlling the colonized).
Post-colonialism - application
Danial
Defoe
Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson

Crusoe tells the story of a man
cast away on an isolated island
who attempts to create a life for
himself.
Robinson
Crusoe
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

where colonial ideology [is]
manifest in Crusoe's colonialist
attitude toward the land upon
which he's shipwrecked and
toward the black man he
'colonizes' and names Friday
Crusoe lands in an inhospitable

environment and makes it his home.
In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday
the word [m]aster even before
teaching him yes and no, and indeed
he lets him know that was to be
[Crusoes] name.
The first theme in the book is

one of survival.
The theme of survival leads to a second theme,
which is awareness that in our lives in civilization
we constantly long for many things we do not
actually need. Thus Crusoe reflects on the theme,
or sin, of covetousness:
Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given
them because they see and covet what He has not given
them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me
to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.
Lord Macaulay said the following about India in 1835 in British

Parliament
"I have traveled across the length and breadth of

India and I have not seen one person who is a
beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in
this country, such high moral values, people of such
caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer
this country, unless we break the very backbone of
this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural
heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace
her old and ancient education system, her culture,
for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and
English is good and greater than their own, they will
lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and
they will become what we want them, a truly
dominated nation."
1 spiritual growth. Away from the regular life of civilization

2
the value of and
self-sufficiency
hard work
colonialism as it appears in Crusoe's

relationship to Friday.
4
fear. It is only by overcoming his fears

that Crusoe can create a happy life on
the island.
money, which is essential in the civilized world,

but useless in the world of the island.
Seminal post-colonial writers such as Nigerian author

Chinua Achebe and Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o
have written a number of stories recounting the
suffering of colonized people.
For example, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe details the
strife and devastation that occurred when British
colonists began moving inland from the Nigerian coast.
Achebe narrates the destructive events that led to the
death and enslavement of thousands of Nigerians when
the British imposed their Imperial government.
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the role of the western

literary canon
Post-colonial criticism
questions
western history as
dominant forms of
knowledge making
The terms "first-world," "second world," "third world"

and "fourth world" nations are critiqued by post-colonial
critics because they reinforce the dominant positions of
western cultures populating first world status.
This critique includes the literary canon and histories
written from the perspective of first-world cultures.
post-colonial critics might question the works included
in "the canon" because the canon does not contain
works by authors outside western culture.
Obviously, the canon often reinforce colonial
hegemonic ideology
ypical questions:
How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically,
represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
What does the text reveal about the problematic of postcolonial identity, including the relationship between
personal and cultural identity and such issues as double
consciousness and hybridity?
What person(s) or groups does the work identify as
"other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups
described and treated?
What does the text reveal about the politics and/or
psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural

difference - the ways in which race, religion, class,
gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs
combine to form individual identity - in shaping our
perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which
we live?
How does the text respond to or comment upon the
characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized
(colonialist) work?
Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of
different post-colonial populations?
How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or
undermine colonialist ideology through its representation
of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about
colonized peoples?
Contributions
Edward Said - Orientalism, 1978; Culture and Imperialism,
1994
Kamau Braithwaite - The History of the Voice, 1979

Gayatri Spivak - In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural
Politics, 1987
Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on

Hegemony and Resistance, 1991
Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture, 1994
Post-colonialism as its themes

Chinua Achebe
- Things Fall Apart, 1958
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
- The River Between, 1965
Sembene Ousman
- God's Bits of Wood, 1962
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - Heat and Dust, 1975
Buchi Emecheta
- The Joys of Motherhood, 1979
Keri Hulme
- The Bone People, 1983
Robertson Davies
- What's Bred in the Bone, 1985
Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Remains of the Day, 1988
Bharati Mukherjee
- Jasmine, 1989
Jill Ker Conway
- The Road from Coorain, 1989
Helena Norberg-Hodge - Ancient Futures: Learning from
Ladakh, 1991
Michael Ondaatje
- The English Patient, 1992
Gita Mehta
- A River Sutra, 1993
Arundhati Roy
- The God of Small Things, 1997
Patrick Chamoiseau - Texaco, 1997
ORIENTALISM
Edward
Said
a Palestinian
American literary theorist
Orientalismis a canonical text of
cultural studies
challenged the concept of orientalism
or the difference between east and
west
argues that the Europeans divided the
world into two parts:
1935-2003
the east and the west

(the occident European Culture)
and the orient
the civilized and the uncivilized.
The term "Orientalism" to refer to a general patronizing

Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian and North
African societies.
the start of European colonization the Europeans came in
contact with the lesser developed countries of the east.
They found their civilization and culture very exotic.
According to Said, the concept of division is totally
artificial.
The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and
ours.
The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race
compared to the Orientals.
They justified their colonization by this concept. They said

that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the
uncivilized world.
The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans
started generalizing the attributes they associated with
Orientals, and started portraying 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 a certain image about
the Orientals in the European mind and in doing that
infused a bias in the European attitude towards the
Orientals.
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.
The paintings, created by European artists of the 19th and
early 20th centuries, depict the Arab World as an exotic
and mysterious place of sand, harems and belly dancers,
reflecting a long history of Orientalist fantasies which
have continued to permeate our contemporary popular
culture.
Chapter 1: The Scope of Orientalism

how the science of orientalism developed and how
the Occident started considering the Orientals as
non-human beings.
The Occident divided the world in to two parts by
using the concept of ours and theirs.
The orients were regarded as uncivilized people;

The westerns said that since they were the refined
race it was their duty to civilize these 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 thought that they had the right
to represent the Orientals in the west all by
themselves.
In doing so, they shaped the orientals the way they
perceived them or in other words they
were orientalizing the orients.
Various teams have been sent to the east where the

orientalists silently observed the orientals by living
with them;
everything the orientals said and did was recorded
irrespective of its context, and projected to
the civilized world of the west. This resulted in the
generalization.
Whatever was seen by the orientals was associated
with the oriental culture, no matter if it is the
irrational action of an individual.
Why should orientalists do?
The most important use of orientalism to the Europeans

was 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 orientalists to generalize the culture
of the orients.

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Elevating

Therefore, Literary Theory is a tool for

Broad schools of theory

Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson

Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

Crusoe lands in an inhospitable

The first theme in the book is

Lord Macaulay said the following about India in 1835 in British

"I have traveled across the length and breadth of

1 spiritual growth. Away from the regular life of civilization

colonialism as it appears in Crusoe's

fear. It is only by overcoming his fears

money, which is essential in the civilized world,

Seminal post-colonial writers such as Nigerian author

the role of the western

The terms "first-world," "second world," "third world"

What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural

Kamau Braithwaite - The History of the Voice, 1979

Dominick LaCapra - The Bounds of Race: Perspectives on

Homi Bhabha - The Location of Culture, 1994

Post-colonialism as its themes

the east and the west

The term "Orientalism" to refer to a general patronizing

They justified their colonization by this concept. They said

The generalized attributes associated with the Orientals

Chapter 1: The Scope of Orientalism

The orients were regarded as uncivilized people;

Various teams have been sent to the east where the

The most important use of orientalism to the Europeans

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