Orientalism

Joy Ellis
Dis 1E


Orientalism refers to a set of ideas about the “East” (Morocco to Japan, basically all North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries) held by England and other countries in the “West.” This obsession with anything from the “East” arose about the end of the 18th century and had permeated society by the end of the 19th century. Many of the ideas still exist today. The foundation of Orientalism is an opposition between The Self and The Other, and a whole list of false oppositions was created out of this.


While the West is described/ depicted as:

Rational
Noble
Virtuous
Good
Self-Controlled
Modern
Industrious
Masculine
Secular
Cold
Repressed
Productive
Restrained
Simple
Real
Dignified
The East is described/depicted as:

Irrational
Childish
Crazy
Violent
Uncontrollable
Barbaric
Lazy
Feminine
Religious Fanatics
Hot
Loose
Unproductive
Sexual
Erotic
Sensual
Luxurious


All of these oppositions are false and completely constructed. People in the west can be lazy, violent, and barbaric, while people in the east can be rational, good, and productive. However, by defining the East through all these things, those in the West helped define themselves as the opposite of all of those things. It gave them a sense of identity, a sense of oneness. “We” are all ________, and “they” over there are all like _________, and that is why we are glad to be us. They privileged themselves by denigrating others. Most people had never even been to the East at all. These oppositions also were used as a justification of imperialism. Since they considered themselves so modern, virtuous, and industrious, it was okay to conquer so many lands because they were all violent, barbaric, and childish and needed someone to help them. These sets of oppositions not only helped England glorify itself, but also offered an appealing alternative. A hot, sensuous, luxurious place sounds extremely appealing when living in cold, gloomy dirty, industrial England.

This idea is pervasive in many works like Byron’s Don Juan and “The Giaour”, Coleridge’s “Kubla Kahn”, De Quincey’s Confessions of English Opium-Eater, and Shelley’s “Ozymandias”.

Even in Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, he uses the same rhetoric of Orientalism and sets up the same oppositions even though the poems have nothing to do with the East. It shows how pervasive these sets of ideas were at that time.