Orientalism Today

The Orientalist mindset continues to be pervasive in nearly every aspect of Western culture. Orientalism is essentially an over generalization of Middle Eastern culture in order to establish it as regressive and "other" compared to the West. In today's media perhaps the most prominent and harmful application of Orientalism can be seen in the treatment of Islam.

Media in the modern United States often promotes untrue stereotypes of Muslims while erasing the realities of Middle Eastern, especially Islamic, culture. This reduction of culture is especially characteristic of Orientalism. Studies of media have found that most depictions of Muslims portray them in a negative light. Often they associate Islam with terrorism in order to portray Muslims as a threat to Western society. This idea does not take into account the reality that a very small minority of Muslims advocate violence, which itself is against the scripture of Islam. By focusing on issues such as mistreatment of women, for example, without any depiction of the views of a Muslim woman, the media exacerbates the divide between Western constructions of Middle Eastern life and the reality experienced by its inhabitants. This issue cannot be resolved until Muslim people are represented in media and depictions of Islam, both good and bad, are proportional to frequency at which they occur.

This modern Orientalism has real life consequences that should not go unmentioned. Islamophobic rhetoric in media translates into Islamophobic actions in reality. As of 2010, 48% of Americans reported feeling prejudiced towards Muslims while they make up one of the smallest minority groups in the country. Over the last few years physical and verbal violence against Muslims in the United States has increased markedly. The Orientalist ideology that we promote through our portrayals of Middle Eastern Islamic people has consequences that should not be forgotten.

Meursault as the Other

Within The Stranger, Meursault is portrayed as an "other" because no one seems to understand him. This causes people to make incorrect assumptions about who he must be, how he feels, his thoughts, and his reasoning. Although it is clear to Meursault what he is thinking, even the reading is still confused because he doesn't appear to be "normal".

I think a very clearly theme in the book is that people fear those who aren't like them. In many instances we see characters who don't know how to react to Meursault's lack of emotion. The priest, for example, tries to conform to Christianity and acts as though Meursault is a monster when he refuses. However, Meursault is not a monster, he simply has his own opinions that he lives by. Meursault is also found guilty at the trial because the prosecution found that he was unsympathetic and remorseful, but no one at the trial can make a true judgement about his feelings towards the situations. Finally, when his acquaintances testify at trial, all they can say is that Meursault is a "good" and "honest" man but that doesn't give any real insight to who he is, proving that no one really knows or understands him as a person.

Meursault is an "other" in The Stranger because no one knows who he really is, including the reader. He is such a peculiar character that people quickly decide that they need to change him because he is different from them, but Meursault isn't a psychopath for being the way he is. He is simply just different than those around him, leading to their poor assumptions about him and making him into an "other" before even trying to understand his opinions or character.