Orientalism in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
William Usdin
ENGL 157 – Exam #1
8.15.12
Orientalism in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
“Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, that is the way you have forced me to see myself, I detest the image! What’s more, it’s a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well.” Caliban, in Aime Cesaire’s “The Tempest”
In his Introduction to Orientalism, Edward Said asserts that the “Orient has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience,” (71). Therefore, in Season of Migration to the North, just as far as the west is engendered through refinement and order, so too has Mustafa Sa’eed subsumed the clichés of barbarism. One of the questions that Salih seems to be asking is: if Orientalism is a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient, can the Orient use this same dichotomy, in turn, to assert power over its European “masters”. In a discussion of the “boundless historical chasm,” separating the east and west, Mustafa Sa’eed forewarns, “I have come to you as conqueror,” (50). The relationship between the Occident and the Orient is one of “love,” “hate,” “astonishment,” “fear,” and “desire” (132). Said seems to denounce the possibility of an objective reflection between the two spheres, “the chances of anything like a clear view of what one talks about in talking about the Near East are depressingly small” (92). Tayeb Salih’s novel explores the possibility of dismantling such a cultural divide by calling into question the very elements that create such opposing outlooks. In doing so, he elevates a negative appraisal of the “other” into one of wonder and mystery, “curiosity […] changed into gaiety, and gaiety into sympathy […] sympathy will be transformed into a desire,”
ENGL 157 – Exam #1
8.15.12
Orientalism in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North
“Prospero, you are the master of illusion. Lying is your trademark. And you have lied so much to me (lied about the world, lied about me) that you have ended by imposing on me an image of myself. Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior, that is the way you have forced me to see myself, I detest the image! What’s more, it’s a lie! But now I know you, you old cancer, and I know myself as well.” Caliban, in Aime Cesaire’s “The Tempest”
In his Introduction to Orientalism, Edward Said asserts that the “Orient has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience,” (71). Therefore, in Season of Migration to the North, just as far as the west is engendered through refinement and order, so too has Mustafa Sa’eed subsumed the clichés of barbarism. One of the questions that Salih seems to be asking is: if Orientalism is a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient, can the Orient use this same dichotomy, in turn, to assert power over its European “masters”. In a discussion of the “boundless historical chasm,” separating the east and west, Mustafa Sa’eed forewarns, “I have come to you as conqueror,” (50). The relationship between the Occident and the Orient is one of “love,” “hate,” “astonishment,” “fear,” and “desire” (132). Said seems to denounce the possibility of an objective reflection between the two spheres, “the chances of anything like a clear view of what one talks about in talking about the Near East are depressingly small” (92). Tayeb Salih’s novel explores the possibility of dismantling such a cultural divide by calling into question the very elements that create such opposing outlooks. In doing so, he elevates a negative appraisal of the “other” into one of wonder and mystery, “curiosity […] changed into gaiety, and gaiety into sympathy […] sympathy will be transformed into a desire,”