Edward Said's Orientalism studies how the Western Colonial powers represented Eastern lands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century's. An important note here is that Said recognizes how Orientalism manages to survive today. It's still seen in Western media reports on Eastern countries, much like the recent coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. The main point here is that, in Said's critique of Orientalism, he perceives that it is a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the East. Said also recognizes that even after each colonies independence colonialism does not disappear altogether. He illustrates that representations of colonialism continue after decolonization and are still a major part of how the West views Eastern countries. In McLeod's reading he outlines the general shape of Orientalism, as defined by Said, also going into more detail with the stereotypical assumptions about cultural differences, and the criticisms associated with Said's perspective.
The shape of Orientalism
1. Orientalism constructs binary divisions.
This is the assumption that the East and West exist in opposition, the East being everything the West is not. This is not an equal opposition because the Orient is described negatively in order to maintain a sense of strength and dominance with the West.
2. Orientalism is a Western fantasy.
Said believes that Western perceptions are based on their assumptions about what is different to their own. They are not based on what actually exists inside the East, and are imaginations among many.
3. Orientalism is an institution.
Throughout the institutionalization of Orientalism Western perceptions transform into reliable knowledge. Such knowledge is passed down through academic establishments based on previous imaginations, this shows just how embedded Orientalism is within the West.
4. Orientalism is literary.
Said embodies the influence Orientalism has on a multitude of literary writings. Such influenced writings celebrate Western experiences abroad, and remind people that Western culture is entangled with Western colonialism.
5. Orientalism is legitimating
Now Orientalism is so widespread that it is going to take a political form that supports such colonial ruling. Said points out how Oriental representations exist in the West to justify the propriety of Western colonial rule over Eastern land.
6. There is 'latent' and manifest' Orientalism.
Said divides Orientalism in two to emphasize the connection between the imaginative perceptions of Orientalism and its material effects. Said describes Latent Orientalism as the fantasies about the Orient that remain constant throughout time. Manifest Orientalism is the producing of Orientalist knowledge at different historical periods. Therefore latent Orientalism is the design that manifest Orientalism builds various materialistic versions from.
Stereotypes of the Orient
1. The Orient is timeless.
McLeod insinuates here that the Orient is represented without history in binary opposition to the historical progress of the West.
2. The Orient is strange.
The Orient's stereotype was one of unusual difference and considered bizarre to Westerners. This also came to be perceived as a weakness which the West could take advantage of.
3. The Oriental is degenerate.
Another stereotype is that the Oriental is weak, unsure of them self, and a coward. They were considered people who needed to be saved from their barbaric customs compared to the West's civil ways.
4. Orientalism makes assumptions about gender.
The Oriental men and women were exercised as grotesque parodies of one another. Men deemed insufficiently masculine, women presented as being immodestly sexually active, adding to their prescribed abnormalities.
5. The Orient is feminine.
In addition to the gender assumptions was the gendering of the Orient in opposition to the West. Here the Orient is perceived to be specifically feminine, scrawny and inferior to the muscular stride common to the Western colonial nations.
6. The Oriental is degenerate.
This composed the Oriental stereotypes into the ideas of laziness, untrustworthiness, violence, and feeble temptations that indulged in the lower levels of human behavior. Hence the previous imposition of the West saving the Orient from them self.
Criticisms of Said's Orientalism argue that by making ethnicity and cultural background the test of authority and objectivity in studying the Orient, Said's attention subsequently draws to the question of identity, and the idea of "Who am I?" Which is only the biggest topic in all of Western literature. Other scholars also regarded Said's Orientalism as a genuinely flawed account of Western scholarship over the ages. Such criticisms clearly don't overthrow Said's innovative studies, but they do encourage readers to not be blindly immovable about the business of colonial discourses.
McLeod, L. (2000) Beginning postcolonialism, Manchester University Press, Chapter 2, pp. 37-57
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