Orientalism

The first image is an orientalist painting which represents a forbidden harem. Maryanne Stevens in The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse outlines that a piece of art can be identified as “orientalist” by looking at two major elements: 1) the subject matter, and 2) the technique. (Stevens, 15). In this case, the subject matter presents the inner happenings of a Sultan’s harem. The image of the forbidden harem allows this European painter to visually manifest the Orient. The man on the elevated…

In Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, the question of home is always close at hand. Questions such as what does it mean to be home and what is a home are constantly circulating throughout the text and tend to haunt the Mestiza body as a raced, foreign, and oriental body. She writes that “…in leaving home I did not lose touch with my origins because lo mexicano [emphasis original] is in my system. I am a turtle, wherever I go I carry ‘home’ on my back.” This is a crucial interjection…

When we read literature, we attempt to understand another perspective. Just as one understands the words of a book, one “attends to [the] suffering” (Schweizer) of the author, starting “an endless act of comprehension”. We can use literature as a device to understand another life. Literature helps readers gain perspective and understanding. However, Harold Schweizer questions the readers’ intents when he states “suffering can become the occasion of an endless act of comprehension”. Reading…

The necessity of the racial category “Asian American” stems from western orientalism. All Asian races are conglomerated though they do not necessarily feel any unity within themselves or have a shared lineage. Even those who have completely assimilated and who no longer identify as Korean, Filipino, Japanese, etc. cannot claim to be “American” because they are not white and are hence relegated the identity of “Asian American”. While those who live in America but do feel a sense of…

Political Invention Not only does this Western view of the veil help assert sexist attitudes, it also helps legitimize political intervention in the East. Narratives in gender are essential to political intervention and have been for centuries. By creating narratives of saving women, it provides national support to wage war on these countries in the name of helping (Shephard, 2006). After 9/11, the images the media used were specifically meant to tie modernity to liberation. Meaning that they…

Romanticism is an artistic movement that began after the Enlightenment that focused on the genre of literature, music and the arts during the late 1750s well through the mid-1800s. It is said that the era of Romanticism is the historical period in which individuals began to visualize themselves as well as their modern conflicts and desires. To put the idea simply, due to Romanticism’s stylistic diversity, it is uncanny to believe that there was more than one category for this art movement, but…

executed. Morrison proves that third place is a far place and no one can reach to this place easily. She also proves that pecola reaches to madness and could not reach to third place. In addition to, Morrison is influenced by the idea of other and orientalism, otherness which is an approach that divides the world into two binary opposites as white versus black or modern versus traditional. Morrison manages to apply the four elements that involved the creation stereotyping which are…

In this poem Kipling writes, “Freedom for ourselves and freedom for our sons/ And, failing freedom, war” (19-20). This, according to Said, unveils the real Orientalist’s (White Man’s) intention and shows that beyond his angelic-like mission “there is always the express willingness to use force, to kill and be killed” (Said 226). Orwell, in his first paragraph of his essay about Kipling, argues that no one should agree with Kipling’s ideology toward imperialism or even exonerate him as he is…

Globalization is the practice of global assimilation ascending from the exchange of world opinions, merchandises, philosophies and additional features of culture. Progresses in transport and satellites organization, as well as the growth of the telecommunication and its expansion the Internet, are most important aspects in globalization, engendering additional interdependence of financial and ethnic events. Globalization has basically remained motivated by the benefits and requirements of the…

For instance, as scholar Kyla Schuller notes, “Animating the trope of orientalism enables Melville to paradoxically humanize whales while simultaneously casting Fedallah and his crew as their counterparts” (16). This connection between the sperm-whales themselves and the specific ethnicity of Fedallah and his crew is evident…