Said’s “Orientalism” was very interesting to read especially when considering Mill’s “Racial Contract”. It seems that race is again constructed by whites to support their political and economic goals, in this case, creating or misrepresenting a whole area of the world, the Orient, to fulfill Western goals. I found the passage, on the top of page 6, very interesting. Said brings up the example of how one wealthy white man’s opinion of an Egyptian woman creates the idea of what an Oriental woman is through his perception of her without taking into account her personal story or account of the situation. I found this passage striking because it dealt not only with the dominance of Flaubert (the man in this situation) over the Egyptian woman through his wealth and power (which could be considered to be tied to his “whiteness”) but also through his gender. This tied to the fact that he then created a stereotype of Oriental women from this experience was a very strong supporting example to Said’s argument.
Posted by hell0179 at July 18, 2005 6:26 PM