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- Title
FICTIONS OF PHANTASMAGORIA: A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF WILLIAM BECKFORD'S VATHEK.
- Authors
Aliakbari, Rasoul
- Abstract
Western colonization of the Orient has been well-endorsed by Eurocentrism, which regards the European culture as the standard against which all other cultures are negatively measured. Partly as a reaction to this otherizing, Postcolonial criticism endeavors to understand political, social, cultural, and psychological processes by which colonialist discourse works. More specifically, a major portion of Postcolonial criticism analyzes the various representations of the Orient carried out by the Westerners. In actuality, under the façade of Orientalism, western authors have more than often regarded the Middle- easterners as backward, dishonest, sexually promiscuous, and so forth, and have subsequently held them well inferior to the European counterparts. Among the pioneering texts in this spirit one may refer to William Beckford's Vathek, which also stands as the focal point of the present study. Composed under the influence of the Arabian Nights and following the Gothic tradition, the novel chronicles the fall from power of the Caliph Vathek. The research seeks to offer a postcolonial reading of this eighteenth century tale, and in doing so, it maps out the novel's various Orientalist topoi such as the way Beckford has fabricated a bizarre Orient, or generalized any negative attribute he has perceived in, or projected to the Oriental subjects.
- Subjects
PHANTASMAGORIA; BECKFORD, William, 1760-1844; VATHEK (Book : Beckford); FICTION; COLONIZATION; EUROCENTRISM; POSTCOLONIALISM; ORIENTALISM
- Publication
Journal of International Social Research, 2012, Vol 5, Issue 22, p16
- ISSN
1307-9581
- Publication type
Article