Tayeb Salih's Season Of Migration To The North

Flowing between England and Sudan, the novel explores and challenges the Self v. the Other dichotomy, or in this case the North v. South. In Tayeb Salih’s, Season of Migration to the North, the author reveals how British imperial power perpetuate the notion of the Western “Self” and the Eastern “Other”, which causes an identity crisis within Mustafa Saeed.

Mustfa Saeed is an example of being in between the North and the South. Born in a small Sudanese village but raised and educated in the West, Saeed lacks a sense of belonging or home. On the one side he has roots to his home in Sudan, but for the most part he was raised in the North, going to Northern schools, learning Northern literature and so on. Even though Mustafa was well educated and respected amongst his peers and professors, he was still seen through an imperialist view. For example, Professor Maxwell, one of Mustafa’s professors, said to him “You, Mr. Saeed, are the best example of the fact that our civilizing mission in Africa is of no avail… it’s as if you’d come out of the

Sex becomes a tool of oppression against the oppressor, and by rejecting the white European women, Saeed is in effect rejecting the West. However, by continually establishing himself as the “other”, Saeed facilitates the identity crisis he has within himself. He constantly refers to “the lie that was my life (29)” and at one point states, “I am no Othello. I am a lie (33).” His statement that he is living a false life is reflected in the way that he perpetuates colonial discourse while using sex to oppress women who engage in said discourse, which reveal the contradictions within himself that erodes his sense of self. This leads to him his suicide-drowning in the river because he believes that he has lived a false