Priyanka.V.S ASSIGNMENT II

CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM BY EDWARD SAID

                               

            The  introductory part of Culture and imperialism starts with the elaboration of the relation hip between culture and empire which become to clear in the name of writing Oriental-ism. Said says that the lectures that had he taken in the universities in the United states  Canada and England in 1985 and 1986 made the core argument of the present work. The argument that he put forward in the book Oriental ism such as history, anthropology and area studies ,were limited in Middle east. So through this book Edwards said is trying to describe the general pattern of relationship between the modern metropolitan West and its overseas territories.

            The European writing on Africa India parts of the far East Australia and the Caribbean these Africans and Indian discourse and some of them has been called as Middle Eastern materials .he says that the what are sticking in this discourse are the rhetorical figures one keeps encountering I their description s of the mysterious East as well as the stereotypes about the African mind.

 And Said says that what he actually avoid or not included in the text Orientals is that the response to western dominance in the end of the great movement decolonization all across the Third world. In the places such as Algeria , Ireland  and Indonesia their we can see not only armed resistance but also cultural resistance almost in every field such as in the political; realm whose common goal was self determination and national independence.

 The general worldwide pattern of imperial culture and historical experience of resistance against empire explained in this book is to emphasize what in rather general way I have called culture. He means culture as two things first one it means the arts of description , communication and representation that have relative autonomy  from the economic , social and political realms and often exist in aesthetic forms an of whose principle aim is pleasure.

            In this book he is actually focusing the modern Western empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuary. And he is actually doing based on making a study on novel and he give an example Robin Crusoe is a prototypical noel and certainly it is about the Europeans’ who creates a fiefdom for himself on distant non European island. And he says hat the recent criticism s concentrating on the narrative fiction and giving small important to the position in the history and world of empire. And the readers of this book will immediately  find the story and what explorer and novelists say about strange regions of the world and thus the readers also become the part of the colonized and people use t assert their own identity and existence of their own history. And Edwards says says that the main part of imperialism is overland. This includes the who had the right to settle and work on it , who kept it going , who won it back, these all issues were reflected , contrasted and even decades the time of narration according to one critic nation themselves are narrations. The power to narrate other from forming and emerging is very important to culture and imperialism. The other  important fact is that the grand narratives of enlightenment mobilized people I the colonial world to rise up and throw off imperial subjection in the process many Europeans and Americans also stirred by these stories and their protagonist ad thy too fought for new narratives equality and human community.

            Second most important thing is that the culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element , that is the concept of Mathew Arnold put in the 1860 s. He believed that cutely palliates if it does not neutralize aggressive urban existence. And he says that when we are reading Shakespeare or Dante e fling sometimes  our self and also culture is associated with it culture also and this differentiates “us” from “them” always with some degree of xenophobia. In this sense culture plays its role as identity, as we seen in the returns to culture and tradition. These returns accompany rigorous code of intellectual and moral envious that are opposed to he permissiveness and hybrid. This will produce verities of religious and nationalist fundamentalism in the formerly colonized world.

            This second culture is a form of theater were various political and ideological causes engage one another. Then his that our student of each and every country who are taught to red their national classics before they read others are expected to appreciate and belong loyally often un certainly .now the problem of culture is it entails not only the venerating one’s own culture but also thinking of its as somehow it  is now differentiated from everyday world. then he speaks that while his writing he found that the British and French artist took this issue in the notion of subject, or inferior races is so prevalent among officials practiced those ideas a notion to rule india or Algeria. and this helped a lot for imperialism to rule. So in this context culture can be consider as the protective enclosure. Through his study he connects the pleasure and profit a with imperial process of which they were manifestly a part rather than condemning or ignoring their participation  in what was unquestioned s that reality in their octet, here he suggests  that what we learnt about this hitherto ignored aspect actually and truly enhances our reading and he elaborates this concept with the most renown novels  Dickens’s  Great Expectation is about self delusion. after reading this work we can find that the entire novel is about  the history of British fiction and also the another novels such as The fatal Shore and The Road To Botany Bay are also dealing with the history of whit’s and history of Australia.

             Carter through has work exploits the history  of Australia in an another way. But Great Expectation was not written with anything like history of Australia like Carting and Patrick White did instead he didn’t form a return” to metropolitan space which all Dickens fiction testifies. So on the one hand interpreters like Hughes and carter expand on the relatively attenuated presence of Australia in nineteenth centaury British writing and earned integrity of an Australian history that become independent from Britain’s in the twentieth centaury. Thus  even dickens settles the difficulty with Australia and another structure of attitude ad reference emerges to suggest the Britain trade ad travel through Orient. In and all the Dickens characters like businessman have connection with empire . but we began to give important to this is for years only. This imperial era  found as shadowy or embodied in the nineteenth centuary but in the work of Conrad , Kipling,Guide and maintain a central area of concern. Canards ‘Notramo” is set in the center of central American republic independent and dominated at the same time  outside interests through his work Conrad actually shown the life and the ruling of people in his land. Conrad  ironically sees the imperialism of the  tome silver min’s British and Americana doomed by its own perception and impossible ambitions what Conrad is seeing is the ruling of British and wat he don’t find is the alternative to this cruel tautology. This limitation in vision are so important in the part of Nostrum as its character and plot. The problem is that the concept “we” and ‘them”. And this effect is actually presented in the American that felt about their neighboring southern neighbors. So he Edward Said that Conrad was anti imperialist and imperialist and we can consider him as a creature of his own time. The sayings like making the world safe for democracy the united states government is still unable  to perceive such implication and they already know that it is not going to happen because of their selfish thought. Conrad actually portrait all this in his novel.the works such as The Quiet American or A Bend in he River  are so in debtor Conrad's anti imperialist irony in Nostrum argue that the surest of world s significant action nd life is in the west whose representatives seem at liberty to visit their fantasies and philanthropies upon a mind deadened third world. When history or culture began to speak every other things became unimportant with out the west. But  Conrad rote his work in the time of imperialism ad and all the prominent figures who understood the reality have portrayed it in their works after decolonization. Then he says that this world have changed since Conrad and Dickens in ways that have surprised , then he says that the point in his book is that the such populations and voices have been thanked the globalized process set in motion by modern imperialism, and for the first time that the history of imperialism and culture is studies as in a separate distinct. And he says that their has been disturbing eruption of separatist and chauvinist discourse far from invalidating the struggle to be free from empire  this cultural problem prove the validity of fundamental interactions energy that animate the wish to be independent. The only way to understand this energy is through history. So in this book historical an geographical range is influenced in high level.

            Imperialism culture was not invisible not conceal its worldly affiliations an interests and there is sufficient clarity in the culture’s major lines for us to remark the scrupulous nations recorded there and also how they have made that much attention. And Through Said's reading he is actually focusing on much possible individual works to read them first as a great product of the creative or interpretative imagination and then to show them as a part of relationship between culture and empire. Said doesn’t believe that authors are mechanically determines by ideology, class or economic history but authors believe ein the history. Culture and  aesthetic  forms are derived from the historical experiences. and he confirms that we cannot grasp historical experience by list or catalogs and no matter how much you provide by way of coverage . that he is actually saying is hat  about the British , French and American Imperial experience is that it has a unique coherence and a special cultural centrality. And narrative works deals most important part in the study of imperialism. He than speaks about the next section which deals with three ideas that is idea of overseas rule  and jumping beyond adjacent territory to very distant lands. Has a  privileged status in these three cultures. Next he says that in this book he speaks about the past and present of “us’ and “them”. After the cold war when the United States has emerged as the last superpower. To live in that situation means the intellectuals with background in the Arab world a number of quite particular concerns an all of such incidents are reflected in this book. and then he says that “we’ are exceptional and not imperial not about to repeat the mistake of earlier powers a disclaimer that has been routinely followed by making the mistake as witness the Vietnam and gulf wars. And in the last section he shares his hope that the history of the imperial adventure rented in cultural terms might therefore serve some illustrative and even deterrent purpose. Through methods he trying to show two forces together , this is by no means the aggrieved colonized people from criticism. As any survey of post colonial states will revels the fortunes and misfortunes of nationalism. Now what is happening is that the emergence of a new intellectual and political conscience.  This is the second concern that he writes this book.

             Then he says that we are sill inheritors of style by which one is defined by the nation which turns derives its authority from supposedly unbroken tradition. in this text he is actually speaking about the truthiness of we, ours and them. Then he says that his second argument is fully sensitive to the reality experience , partly because of empire all culture are involved in one another none is single and pure all are hybrid, heterogeneous , extraordinarily differentiated and un monolithic. And he say that extraordinary cultural diversity the united states is and will surely remain coherent nation. The same is true of the other   English speaking countries. and he says that one is all better is to explore history rather than repress or deny it adjective reason. the last point that Said want to make is that this book is an exile’s book for objective that the had no control, because he belongs to the two culture and without completely belonging to the other.