Research Paper on:
Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and Orientalism

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
example of the Orientalist method of literature. As the Orientalists vision can promote the difference between the familiar, in the case of the novel, England and the strange, or the  Caribbean, Rhys does a good job at distinguishing her main characters acceptance of the people, culture and landscape in contrast to the English colonists who live there. Where the natives  view the island as their home which has been forever changed by the influences of imperialism, their unique framework provides them with a more complete perspective of their surroundings as  opposed to the English colonists who only live on the island with the intention of returning to England. As an outcome of European power and knowledge, Orientalism is a Western  cultural phenomenon which is associated with the colonial and imperial impression of the people of the Orient and Eastern cultures and their history. According to Edward Said, Orientalism is "a  political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, us) and the strange (the Orient, the East, them)" (Al-Dami, 1998). As the West is  visualized by Westerners to be the strong and dominating culture, it takes it upon itself to contain and restrain the cultural elements of the East. The West also only recognizes  those forces and elements in the Eastern culture which are familiar entities in regards to Western society. In order to contain the unfamiliarity of Eastern culture, the Westerners take  to contain the Eastern elements in their society in dominating frameworks. These frameworks take different forms in different areas around the world as colonists apply different techniques to control and  contain the foreign environment and people. The West is seen as defeating East in the reorganization of historical ascendancy. The imperial society which is trying to overcome the Eastern culture