Edward Said Reflections On Exile Analysis

The theory of exile in Edward Said’s perspective

The original meaning of exile is banishment and it refers to a person who displaced from origin home and not allowed to return, as Said mentioned in his article Reflections on Exile “anyone prevented from returning home is an exile”, even this kind of exile is by voluntary or involuntary, by choice or by force.

The theme of exile was not born in the twentieth century or the postcolonial theorists found out it. According to one of the hypothesis that the beginning of exile as it is mentioned in Bible was the story of Adam and Eve, who were forced to leave Eden (Gen 3:23-24), also the story Israel’s exile in Babylon was a form of divine punishment for past sin.

In the twentieth century, many writers discussed the theme of exile in their works in several fields such as politics, literature, history, geography and so on. One of the most prominent and influent Arab American scholar in the twentieth century, which the theme of exile was central in his critical and scholarly works, is Edward Said. Said who was born in Jerusalem, Palestine to parents from a different background, displaced with his family to Egypt, Lebanon, until they settled down in the United States in 1973.

According to Edward Said, exile never means to be totally cut off and isolated from the place of origin because the exiles have roots in their original homeland, previous experiences,

He used it as an actual to refer to an individual or a group of people live in unfair and painful, being in a terrible position either they live in origin homeland (internal exile) such as Palestinian condition, or live in a place of new residence after exiled (external exile) for different reasons (racism, minority, famine or religion), as Irish Catholics who forced to leave Ireland to North of America and Great Britain because of the