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how me West dealt with the Orien t by -making statements about it, authorizin g views
of it, describing it. by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it . .•• as a way of
dominating and having auth ority over it (3). Said claims that various texts authorized
the Orien t, and through the citing of previo us texts by succeeding authors . the Orient
came into being (20).l 8 The connotations of authority that Said applies to
Orientalism also define imperialism and colonialis m:
It [autho rityJ is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is
persuasive; it hasstatus, it establishes canons o f taste and value; it is
virtually indistin guishab le from certain ideas it dignifies as true , and
from traditions. perceptions. and j udgements it forms, transmits,
reproduces (19-20).
Although Oriesualism does not provide a counter-discourse to eurocenrricism, it does
demonstrate that knowledge/ language and power are inseparable . Within the
colonizer 's language. there are sign systems that pass themselves off as 'universal ' or
' natural ,' that give the speakin g subject the power to represent and inscribe its object.
Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge suggest that there is a danger that "the post-
colonial is reduced to a purely textual phenomenon. as if power is simply a matter of
discourse and it is only through discourse that counter claims can be made- (278.
italics mine). Although the postcolonial project should not be reduced to a single
phenomenon, however , language is power and it played a major role in the imperial
and colonial conquest of subduing the colonized. Moreove r. a great percentage of the
human race has been , and continues to be. described and represented as inferior.
Terry Eagleton. in his chapter on "The Rise of Englisb Literature" in Literary Theory,
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