Orientalism shows to the reader how the oriental land is feminised for a constructed culture. This is a form of conquest by the west over the east. Explorer Marco Polo speaks about the western traders who take Asian wives are in fact taking them away from the Asian men, fighting the Asian men for their women, almost like a disgrace of dignity to the Orient men taking away their women, showing the west as the most powerful source. It is a form of reducing the Orients identity and controlling it. Christopher’s Columbus adventures to discover Asia was a way of having possession over these lands. Hence forth in this book, not only is the other the orient, the polar opposite to the west, but it was also something to be won, a land to be dominated like some trophy to lay claim to. The west always wanted to be in control. In Orientalism this was no different. Be reducing the Orients culture and way of life it gave the west a perfect opportunity to fortify their control. Since the …show more content…
There was a changing attitude to Orientalism once the 20th century emerged. The new 20th century Orientalists were now involved in the way of life of the Orients, living with them in their day to day activities, while the earlier Orientalists were quite in their observations, never giving away too much. The new type of Orientalists decided to try and live among the Orients as if they were one of them that they all belonged together in harmony, the earlier Orients had a clear distinction between themselves and the Orients and interaction between the two was discouraged. The new type of Orients were using this living and interacting with the orients as a devious way to learn how to control the Orients, that they believed to live amongst them and to learn more about them would allow the west to rule them more effectively. For example Lawrence of Arabia was an Orientalist who believed in interacting with the orients for power
Because Orientalism is still a factor, the question then therefore would be “why does Orientalism exist and what is its purpose?” Edward Said, a literary theorist and critic poses the response as “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and
Invisible Cities’[its original Italian title ‘le città invisibili’] by the Italian author Italo Calvino, is a novel compiled of Prose poems describing the wonders of an adventurist whose discoveries are made up of his inner aspirations to venture; Marco Polo. Written in the Thirteenth century, it was published by Giulio Einaudi, in 1972 then translated into English by William Weaver in 1974. Calvino was inspired by the travel diary, ‘The Travels of Marco Polo’ that documented all of the voyagers’ discoveries that followed his journey throughout Asia within Yuan Dynasty China. The book revolves around Marco Polo and that era’s Emperor of China, Kublai Khan who actively seeks Polo out, to present to him the foundations of cities that he may rule over. The traveller responds through
It is often said that history is written by the victor, and in the race to industrialization of the past two centuries, Western Europe and the United States have emerged as the victors. This enabled them to write a history in which their rise to power was preordained and inevitable and in which Eastern cultures are viewed as backward and intolerant. These Eurocentric histories have so fully permeated the global psyche that the stereotypes they have perpetuated inform our cultural interactions to this day. However, an unbiased look at the premodern history of Asia and the Middle East reveals the inaccuracy of the Eurocentric paradigm. Contrary to the Eurocentric view, there is nothing inherently intolerant about Islam or Middle Eastern and East Asian culture. In fact, many of the societies that have existed in the East have been extraordinarily tolerant and heterogeneous.
Many children, including myself, have once played the game Marco Polo. Although, I have always been curious, who exactly is Marco Polo? My fascination of Marco Polo warped into a fixation of his travels. Marco Polo was born in Venice in the year 1254. His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffeo, were merchants who had seats in the great nobleman council of Venice (Polo IV). According to his records, he had traveled thousands of miles with his father and uncle.
But, utilizing both Napoleon’s ideas on national hegemony and also Hegel’s views on the evolution and progression of consciousness clearly show that the Orient, particularly in the era after Sykes-Picot, was a region doomed to conflict and turmoil. This internecine conflict infamously linked to the Orient has now clouded our scholarly and geopolitical understanding of the area, making it our scholarly imperative to analyze and assess the modern Orient as 1) a product of Anglo-French interests and 2) as a region arbitrarily categorized into states entirely unprepared for the prospect of nation
Around the time of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Europe was a place in need of inspiration. Marco Polo, a merchant, and still a simple man, was this source of inspiration. He was an ordinary boy during his childhood, living a similar life to the other boys his age. Although his intentions might not have been as significant as his impact, he was very influential. Marco Polo served as an influence to many later explorers. Whether it was through his book, The Travels of Marco Polo, which focused mainly on descriptions of spices and commercial goods and many other interesting trade items he encountered in his travels, he sparked an interest and desire of not only Europe, but later explorers as well . Marco Polo was viewed to have had definite charm and also having much capability. He has also proven that he was a tough man. This is evident because of the many voyages he survived, which included occurrences of bandit ambushes, disease, and not to mention the fatigue of the travel. There have been many who believe that Marco Polo was not intellectually equipped, meaning that he was not a very educated man, as no European probably was at the time . But as always, there is of course some speculation on the many aspects of the life of Marco Polo. Many people have their own beliefs of whom the real Marco Polo was and what he accomplished. There will be mention on some of the alleged negative, yet also positive aspects of his life. Despite all the accusations or assumptions of Marco Polo, history was affected as a result of his existence. He still remains an important figure in history.
The first blow of the machete landed on the boy. “My father, they have killed me!” he cried as he ran towards him. The father then drew his own machete and “cut him down.” In Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, this was justice. The boy was from another tribe, a payment for a misdeed, and his life was theirs to do with as they pleased. Justice is something that all of us have a notion of. However we differ in our implementation of it, we all know when it’s been violated. Many of the seeds of our modern idea of justice have existed for millennia. Those seeds comprise two basic forms based on Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian thought – Should justice be rooted on a higher ideal or is justice primarily something established by us in the here and now? For one justice my involve taking the life of another as just recompense for previous crimes while another my feel that standing for what is just would be something worth giving one’s own life for. And sadly one may put off embracing justice to the detriment of his own life and the lives of those around him.
Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).
In addition, Orientalism also explained in the book “Orientalism” written by Edward Said, a Palestinian post-colonialism scholar. In this book Edward Said explain about history and culture of Asia, Africa, and Middle East, also he explained Orientalism in this book more briefly. Said believe that orientalism has an explicit and implicit sides. Said wrote that connotatively, Orientalism is a tool for the west to get a political influences in the east which means, “It connotes the high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early- twentieth-century European colonialism.”(Said, 2). Which is the whole point of the book “Orientalism”. Moreover, Said also wrote “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’ Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, n...
To answer the question posed it necessary to first consider the development of, and what constitutes the West. Once this is achieved, we are than able to discuss occidentalism. However, the concept of orientalism, and what constitutes the orient, will first be considered as, arguably, orientalism provoked occidentalism. Thereafter, the four key features of occidentalism, identified by Buruma and Margalit (2004) will be discussed. Contemporary notions of ociddentalism, more specifically Islamic extremism will also be studied; of must importance here is if, or how, Buruma’s and Margalit’s (2004) theory of occidentalism aids our understanding of the perspective of those in resistance to the west.
The orient has been fundamental in defining the West as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. The West comes to know itself by proclaiming via orientalism everything it believes it is not. European culture gained its strength and identity by setting itself off against the orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self (Said 3).
Marco Polo, is probably the most famous Westerner who ever traveled on the Silk Road. He excelled all the other travelers in his determination, his writing, and his influence. His journey through Asia lasted 24 years with the help of his father, Niccolò and Maffeo. He became a confidant of Kublai Khan, and traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale, which became the greatest travelogue. Marco Polo was a great explorer, who wrote a book written about his travels which gave Europeans some of their earliest information about China and inspired many explorers including Christopher Columbus.
According to Said, one definition of Orientalism is that it is a "style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and the 'Occident'." This is connected to the idea that Western society, or Europe in this case, is superior in comparison to cultures that are non-European, or the Orient. This means that Orientalism is a kind of racism held toward anyone not European. Said wrote that Orientalism was "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient." This Western idea of the Orient explains why so many European countries occupied lands they believed to be Oriental.
When in 1978 Edward W. Said published his book Orientalism, it presented a turning point in post-colonial criticism. He introduced the term Orientalism, and talked about 2 of its aspects: the way the West sees the Orient and the way the West controls the Orient. Said gave three definitions of Orientalism, and it is through these definitions that I will try to demonstrate how A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is an Orientalist text. First, Said defined Orientalism as an academic discipline, which flourished in 18th and 19th century.
Orientalism is a tradition of Western representations of the Orient, created in the context of Western political dominance over the Orient, which understand and master the inferior.