(DOWNLOAD) "Colonised Men, De-Colonised Sex (Critical Essay)" by Traffic (Parkville) ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Colonised Men, De-Colonised Sex (Critical Essay)
- Author : Traffic (Parkville)
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Reference,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 348 KB
Description
This article demonstrates the ways in which the writings of nineteenth-century author and naval captain Pierre Loti pose an important challenge to contemporary understandings of colonial power and their impact on the colonised male. Loti's representation of colonised men in his first novel Aziyade diverges from the conventional idea of the colonised man as emasculated and powerless, which is expressed in the figure of the 'noble savage' and more broadly in colonial literature. Through his portrayal of desire as suffused, ambiguous and ever-changing, Loti offers us a new image of the colonised male as virile, attractive and empowered. Thus, this article analyses Loti's particular depiction of desire and its great impact on the colonised male subject. In nineteenth-century France, the colonial world provided a plethora of fictions and fantasies for the Western consumer. (1) These cultural products were collectively studied as oriental, thus promulgating an entire orientalist industry. Both indigenous female and male subjects became sites of Western myth, each ascribed a tale of their own. Viewed as alluring, yet inscrutable, the colonised oriental woman emerged as an enduring preoccupation in the Western imagination. The colonial male, described by Frederick Quinn as 'tall, erect and in control, exuding political determination and phallic energy', (2) posited himself as the dominant Other to the feminine East and brought home the success stories of colonial intervention. In contrast, the colonised were symbolically demarcated by the indigenous woman as 'feminine, receptive vessels of the advancing colonial presence'. (3) This image has been commented upon extensively by scholars such as Denean Sharpley-Whiting (4) and Malek Alloula who has demonstrated how the oriental woman was gazed upon, penetrated and denigrated during the process of French colonisation. (5)