The Study Of Edward W. Said And 《Orientalism》

As a pioneer of the cultural theories of post-colonialism, Edward Said is one of the most influential litterateurs and culture critics acknowledged by Western intellectuals; at the same time he is also a slightly controversial figure. Through close reading and analyses by examples of his representative work—Orientalism, this thesis explores its theoretical origin, spiritual essence, writing techniques and impact assessment comprehensively, and mainly focuses on its disclosure and critique on the hegemony of Western Center Doctrine. In order to offer the readers a better understanding of the theories, the thesis tries to relate the theories to practice based on the existing research. Therefore, the study on Orientalism, not only helps us to understand the theories of post-colonialism, but also to improve the research of culture and literary criticism.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part introduces Said's life, works, theoretical origin and the start of writing Orientalism. For Said, apart from a bit of purely personal interest, the main cause of his study on Orientalism mostly lies in his personal experience and social responsibility as an intellectual. The second part is the core body of the thesis. Through the formation of the discourse system and the spiritual essence of Orientalism, the thesis discloses the essence of Western Center Doctrine. The main idea of this part, including three sections, mainly reflects the relationship between knowledge and power. The first section explains the operation way through Orientalists and their works in the course of the formation of Orientalism; the second section explains the post-colonial relationship between East and West through the binary opposition's thoughts; the third section explains the narrative strategies of Orientalism through the description on oriental topics in classical works. The third part of the thesis is mainly about the impact assessment of Orientalism, including the approval of its contribution from some Chinese or foreign scholars, especially the contribution to the relationship between colonial knowledge and colonial power and its contribution to anti-colonization. Meanwhile, a few scholars point out its illogicality and deficiency with the agreement of its achievements. In short, Orientalism as a monumental work not only greatly affects the research on post-colonialism but also on the enlightenment of Chinese post-colonialism cultural criticism.