Orientalism and the Eastern women in Lord Byron's The Giaour

Shedding light on Orientalist discourse's impact on the representations of the East and especially on Eastern women in literary works, this thesis concentrates on Orientalism and its mutation throughout history. In his groundbreaking work Orientalism, Edward Said claims that the distinction between the East and the West is not natural but human-made. He asserts that the East-West relationship is a hegemonic relation based on the false image of the East produced by Westerners as the primitive, irrational, feminine 'other' in contrast with the rational, masculine, civilized West. In Orientalist discourse, Orientalist writers construct the West as 'the self,' namely 'the subject' with all the positive aspects, while they define the East as 'the other,' 'the object' with all the negative aspects to reflect their country's political attitude towards 'the other'. The thesis attempts to ascertain the Western perception of the East and its impact on the representation of the Eastern women in Orientalist discourse who often embody the Eastern world itself, written in Western male writers' works. In order to actualize this goal, this thesis examines the stereotypical images of the East throughout history and Eastern women's image in Western discourse through a detailed examination of specific literary works. Such a discourse analysis allows the focus to be maintained on the Eurocentric representations of the East and Eastern women in a survey of the Western literary tradition through the Middle-age, Renaissance, Colonial period, and postcolonial times.. In order to establish a continuity of the Eastern women stereotypes in Western discourse, the thesis also presents a critical analysis of Orientalist travel literary works focusing on a close reading of Lord Byron's The Giaour.