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Culture And Imperialism Edward Said Analysis

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Culture & Imperialism
Edward W. Said

In this summary the book Culture & Imperialism by Edward W. Said will be discussed. I will examine and state the main ideas posed by Said and discuss those ideas. Focussing on chapter two, titled Consolidated Vision, in which Said examines the various interactions between Culture and Imperialism. Said sees a connection between Western works of Culture and the Imperialistic foreign policies that the West conducted, and perhaps still conducts, in the world.

Said explores the relation between Culture and Imperialism, he states that all twentieth-century French and British cultural works refer to their Empires, and therefore investigates cultural works and their connection to Imperialism. Said uses novels …show more content…

Since the writers only had Western readers in their minds, who reaped so many benefits from Imperialism, they did not bother offering a critical view. Said proposes a ‘contrapuntal reading’ of the texts, which means to keep an open mind in regards to the hidden agenda, what is happening in the background, of a text. It is extremely important to remember the facets that the author excluded from his text, since back than the other side of Imperialism was ‘unknown’. We have to remember that most of those texts are not based on actual experience, but merely impressions of other texts and reports about colonies, and most of the times simplifications of the truth. Said uses the book Heart of Darkness from Joseph Conrad as a primary example. Although it criticizes the Belgium Imperialistic policy, it justifies the rational and ideological Imperialism of the British. Said stresses the importance of the novel as a cultural artefact of Imperialism, the two are intertwined and fortified each other. The British consumed novels intensively and this consumption created a specific idea about Imperialism through posing one narrative while preventing

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