Orientalism and Perspective

In the Edward Said excerpt from his book Orientalism, Said discusses various origins of the term, the rationalizations behind it, and the impact that its had on the relationship between the West and the East. He discusses how many of the stereotypes derived from Eastern culture arise from European imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Just finishing the World War One unit in my European history class, imperialism was a way to advance economic positions in European nations, and in turn, the Europeans were able to create stereotypes that Said described, such as oriental cultures being "despotic" and "clannish". While, as Said affirmed, this is certainly not the case, it was an excuse for Europeans to justify the imperialism and unjust quotas they put their subject populations under, as the oriental cultures clearly "needed their help." Said describes that without examining orientalism as discourse, which Said demonstrates in his book, one cannot possibly understand the systematic structure by which European culture was able to manage and as a result produce such an authoritative position over oriental or "Eastern Cultures" that carries over today.


I think that this view of how cultures are "supposed" to behave because of the structures that were established and later embedded in European colonialism carries over today and is manifested in "The God of Small Things". In our discussion today in class, we talked about "the Play" that the family participates in and who defies or complies with the performance. When we discussed Baby Kochamma and Chacko, we see that they have very much been influenced by how they think of European society. Baby Kochamma is attempting to impress young Sophie Mol by quoting from The Tempest, which even Estha and Rahel catch on to. Additionally, when Margaret makes an ignorant comment about utterly fascinated she is with a certain aspect of Indian culture, Chacko is extremely angry when Ammu stands up for herself, as if her response was completely out of line because she was responding to someone of European culture.


While Ammu, the only one who doesn't want to behave like a, "godforsaken tribe," defends herself, the narrator illuminates that her anger is derived from the fact that she did not have the type of education that Chacko, the Rhodes Scholar who traveled to Oxford, and Baby Kochamma had. Thus, it is evident that this system of European dominance over Eastern cultures is very prevalent in education and various aspects of society.