Saturday, June 11, 2016

How does Frankenstein demonstrate Said's thoeries on the relationship between the Orient and the Occident?

Just as Said throws the Orient and the Occident into stark contrast with one another, so is Frankenstein's creature thrown into stark contrast with the world around him. The similarity is one of "otherness;" that is, like the Occident perceives the Orient as its negative or inverse, so the creature perceives himself as the opposite of the "normal" world. He has witnessed and observed enough to know that average human families have love, relationships, duties, and certain habits of communication, and he has none of those. In Said's theories regarding the Orient and the Occident (as found in his text Orientalism), the Orient is portrayed as both romantic and misunderstood by its counterpart, the Occident (the West). This disparity, being misunderstood, is the common tie that binds both works together. It is this relationship that serves to demonstrate Said's theories in Frankenstein. 
https://wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/orientalism.htm

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