{"id":1169,"date":"2023-10-19T14:01:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T18:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2023-10-19T14:01:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T18:01:23","slug":"is-greece-a-social-construct-how-dionea-orientalizes-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/10\/19\/is-greece-a-social-construct-how-dionea-orientalizes-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Greece a social construct? How Dionea Orientalizes Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his book Orientalism<\/em>, Edward Said defines orientalism as a system of ideas that has many manifestations. One is the style of popular and literary thought that makes a distinction between the \u201cWest\u201d and the \u201cEast\u201d: the east is everything other: feminine, sexual, lazy, evil, dark, non-Christian. Another is the academic discourse of \u201cOriental scholars\u201d who seek to define and study \u201coriental\u201d cultures and codify them for Western audiences.<\/p>\n

Because Greece is thought the seat of \u201cthe occident,\u201d or the West, the orientalization of Dionea shows how the unfiltered ancient Greek is now so \u201cother\u201d to British culture. The story takes place in Montemirto Ligure, near Genoa in northeastern Italy. Our narrator, Dr. De Rosis, is \u201ca priest-hater and conspirator against the Pope\u201d and writes in French, Italian, Latin, and English (Lee 4). He even denies Evelyn\u2019s invitation to Rome on the grounds that he has become \u201ca northern man,\u201d (Lee 7). Though he is Italian, he remains apart from the people in the village and bears resemblance to an educated man of this English audience\u2019s mileu. This serves to make him relatable and able to otherize both his village (because he is somewhat English-coded and high class) and especially Dionea.<\/p>\n

Though the Italian villagers are foreign (they speak Italian and are superstitious), they are characterized as more rustic, whereas Dionea is truly alien. As De Rosis is our only narrator, he and his \u201cnorthern\u201d perspective alone construct Dionea\u2019s foreignness. The \u201clittle brown mite\u201d who washes up on the shore \u201cis doubtless a heathen\u201d because she has no cross around her neck and speaks \u201csome half-intelligible Eastern jabber\u201d with \u201ca few Greek words embedded in I know not what,\u201d (Lee 4). That last part is emblematic of Dionea\u2019s whole existence to De Rosis: Dionea has flecks of recognizable Greekness, but contains something more foreign and mysterious.<\/p>\n

When some of Lady Evelyn\u2019s friends, Waldemar (presumably a German) and his wife, come to visit, they decide to use Dionea, representative of an older and more deadly version of Greece, as a model for a beautiful pale Venus statue a-la Venus de Milo. Waldemar attempts to Westernize, or Italianize, Dionea by making her white and marble, but eventually sets fire to the building with both of them in it. I think this was Dionea\u2019s doing, as she has been known to make people do destructive, and Pagan, things in the past, such as buy her potions. Her influence makes him create a \u201cvotive pyre,\u201d a dangerous part of Greek religion (Lee 26). Though \u201cnortherners\u201d like Waldemar try to \u201cWesternize\u201d the rough and ancient Greece, the terrifying and \u201coriental\u201d one lurks beneath. There are two Greeces: one Westernized and one Oriental. This Orientalized Greece has so much power because it is supposed to be the very origin of Western civilization, yet is actually sinister.<\/p>\n

Here is my source, the first chapter of Said’s book: said orientalism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his book Orientalism, Edward Said defines orientalism as a system of ideas that has many manifestations. One is the style of popular and literary thought that makes a distinction between the \u201cWest\u201d and the \u201cEast\u201d: the east is everything other: feminine, sexual, lazy, evil, dark, non-Christian. Another is the academic discourse of \u201cOriental scholars\u201d … Continue reading Is Greece a social construct? How Dionea Orientalizes Greece<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5331,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}