SIDI MOHAMED BEN ABDLLAH UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMAN SCIENCES

SAIS—
SAIS—FES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
"Literary, Cultural, Gender & Media Studies" LAB.
MASTER: CROSS-
CROSS-CULTURAL AND LITERARY STUDIES

Gender, Space, and Race in

Sheikh Desert popular Romances:
Never Marry in Morocco, The Veiled Web,
and Lord of the Desert as case studies

A thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the

Requirements for the Master Degree

Prepared by: Supervised by:

Mohamed OUKAAI Pr. Khadija LOUMMOU
CNE:2422959055

Academic Year
2008-2009

1
To My beloved parents, I dedicate this work.

2
Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the help and
support of many people, to whom I am very indebted. Special thanks
go first to my supervisor Professor Khadija LOUMMOU who has been of
great help in conducting this research. I deem it necessary to express my
gratitude for her guidance, advice, patience, and encouragement. Of
great help also is Professor Hamid MOUNTASSIR who provided me
with different reading materials, especially with the corpus I worked on
in this research. I am also obliged to all my professors from whom we
have benefited a lot for two years of study in “Cross-Cultural and
Literary Studies Master Program”. For their proofreading of my
research paper, I am grateful to teachers Abdelwahd OULGOUT and
MOUNSSEF Aziza. Finally, my thanks also go to all my classmates and
friends who have helped me with their reading materials, their advice,
and their encouragement.

3
Abstract

It is within the general framework of cultural studies that this research has
undertaken to investigate a little-explored area of research in postcolonial
criticism, which is that of ‘Sheik Desert Popular Romances’. This research
embarks upon analysing the orientalist/colonial discourse in terms of the
(mis)representation of gender, space, and race in popular romance. It aims at
unveiling how popular romance can be engaged in reinforcing
orientalist/colonial ideas and stereotypes which have been constructed about
the orient since long time ago. This dissertation contends that despite popular
romance’s being a popular form of literature, being written by women and
being based on mass market, it constitutes a space wherein orientalist/colonial
stereotypes are diffused on mass level. Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in
Morocco (1996), Catherine Assaro’s The Veiled Web (1999) and Diana
Palmer’s Lord of the Desert (2000) have been selected as case studies in the
light of which gender, space, and race are going to be read from a postcolonial
perspective. It is through this analysis of these novels that this dissertation,
hopefully, aims at showing the significance of studying popular romance from
a postcolonial perspective.

Key concepts: Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Criticism, Sheik Desert Popular

Romances, Orientalist/Colonial Discourse, Gender, Space, Race.

4
 ‫ﻤﻭﺠﺯ ﺍﻝﺒﺤﺙ‬

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اء ‬
‫* ا)وا(ت ا'‪ ) #‬اا( ‪+, - ،‬ر   ا‪ .‬واا‪ 0‬ا‪ !/‬وراء‬
‫ا‪45‬ر ه‪$‬ا ا‪23‬ع‪ :‬ه ا)=‪ ! #‬ن أن ا;‪:‬ب ا‪)'48‬ا‪ !7‬وا‪34‬ري‪
 )>,(  ،‬‬
‫! ا‪4‬ت ا‪4( C ،F‬ى ذ‪ C3' D‬أ@ل أ‪)5‬ى @‪$ .#‬ا‪J ،‬ن ا‪I( "#‬ف إ‬
‫ام را ا;‪:‬ب ا‪)'48‬ا‪ !7‬وا‪34‬ري‪F5 - ،‬ل ‪L MFM‬ه‪ :K‬ا‪ ،,O‬ا‪L‬ء‪،‬‬
‫وا)ق؛ وذ‪ D‬ا‪ - 7F:‬ا)وا(ت ا)و ا‪
 :4‬و  أا  اب ‪Never‬‬
‫)‪ #  Marry in Morocco (1996‬ﭬ)‪ ,S‬د(‪ ،C‬ا ا ‪The Veiled Web‬‬
‫)‪ (1999‬ـ آ )(‪ -‬أرو‪ ،‬و أ ااء )‪ Lord of the Desert (2000‬ـ د( ‪.)3V‬‬

‫ﻜﻠﻤﺎﺕ ﺍﻝﻤﻔﺘﺎﺡ‪ :‬ارات ا ‪    ،‬ا‪ ،‬ا)وا(ت ا'‪ )#‬اا( ‪،‬‬
‫ا;‪:‬ب ا‪)'48‬ا‪ !7‬وا‪34‬ري‪ ،‬ا‪ ،,O‬ا‪L‬ء‪ ،‬ا)ق‪.‬‬

‫‪5‬‬
 Table of contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Abstract(s)……………………………………………………………………...1
Table of contents…………………………………………………………...…..3
General introduction ………………………………………………………….5

Part one: Popular Culture and Postcolonial Criticism …………….……..9

Introduction:………………………………………………………………....9

1.Popular culture in context……………………………………………….9

1.1 Definitions of culture and /in Cultural Studies……………………10

1.2 Conceptualizing popular culture…………………………………..14
1.3 On popular romance and mass culture…………………………….20

2.Post/colonial discourse and popular culture/romance ………………...26

2.1 The Orientalist discourse in American popular culture…………...26

2.2 Popular romance in postcolonial discourse……………………….30
2.3 Instancing orientalist/colonial discourse in popular romance…….35

3.Gender, Space, race, and popular romance…………………………….38

3.1 The involvement of ‘western women’ in the imperial project……39

3.2 The politics/poetics of space representation………………………45
3.3 The trope of race in colonial discourse……………………………51

Conclusion:…………………………………………………………………57

Part two: A Postcolonial reading of : Never Marry in Morocco, The Veiled

Web, and Lord of the Desert…………58

Introduction:..………………………………………………………………58

1.Gender and the representation of ‘native women’…………………….60

1.1 ‘Muslim women’ under western female gaze…………………….62

1.1.1 Never Marry in Morocco: Patriarchy and the ‘oppression’
of women .....................................62
1.1.2 Lord of the Desert: ‘Harem’ representation .............................68
1.1.3 The Veiled Web: The trope of ‘veil’ ....................................... 75
1.2 The ‘western’/ ‘Oriental woman’: Signs of differences……….…81

6
 1.2.1 Lord of the Desert: The allegory of impotence ………………82

2. Space and the construction of ‘imaginative geography’……………...88

2.1 The (mis)representation of the ‘Oriental space’…………………...88

2.1.1 Lord of the Desert: ‘Qawi’as an imaginary space ……..…..…88
2.1.2 Never Marry in Morocco: The representation of postcolonial
space…………………………...93
2.2 The Veiled web: On aesthetics of surveillance …………..……....99
2.2.1 Gendering space: The representation of Morocco as a
patriarchal space ………………………………………………..106

3. The (mis)representation of race……………………………………...110

3.1 Never Marry in Morocco: The politics of race………………….110

3.2 Lord of the Desert: Eurocentrism and the discourse of
‘primitivisation’/ ‘modernization’………..…….116
3.3 The Veiled Web: the construction of cultural/racial differences .... 121

Conclusion: ................................................................................................. 128

General Conclusion ........................................................................................130

Bibliography....................................................................................................133
Webliography..................................................................................................138
Appendix …………………………………………………………………...139

7
General introduction

This research is concerned with the analysis of the orientalist/colonial

discourse in terms of the (mis)representation of gender, space, and race in
popular romance. Certainly, a great deal has been said and written about this
issue of orientalist/colonial representations in imperial narratives. Still, the
impulse behind working on such representations in popular romance derives its
significance and relevance from the fact that, unlike ‘canonical literature’, a
little attention has been paid to the study of those representations in popular
romance.1 Given that popular romance is part and parcel of popular culture, the
choice of this topic is also due to the belief that it is on the level of popular
culture that the orientalist discourse can be more influential by means of its
being disseminated on mass level. Hence, the main objective of this research
paper by and large is to try to disclose how popular romance has been engaged
in reviving, prolonging, and buttressing old stereotypes constructed about the
‘orient’ in general.
In saying this, it can be noticed that there is a sort of shift from the study of
‘canonical’ literature to the study of ‘popular literature’. This shift is
principally owed to the emergence of cultural studies. Before its emergence,
culture and literature used to be conceived of more in terms of ‘elitism’ and
‘literariness’, meaning that it was only ‘high’ literature and culture that were
regarded as worthy of academic investigation, and that literature was to be
analysed intrinsically, away from any consideration of some historical,
political and ideological factors that can affect its production and consumption.
Such assumptions have indeed been revolutionised by cultural critics. I.e.
they no longer make distinction between cultural/literary forms, ‘high’ or

1
By popular romance, this dissertation does not mean those novels which are perceived in the west as
mere novels of romance and sex. In this research, popular romance will be used to refer to those
novels described as “sheik desert romance” or “imperial popular romance”, in which a western heroine
travels or is kidnapped to an oriental setting, where she meets an Arab sheik with whom she madly
falls in love. In such kind of romance, there is clear focus on the representation of the orient as an
‘exotic’, ‘fantastic’ and ‘erotic’ space. Thus the interest in studying such genre is to delve into its
different forms of representation. Henceforth, popular romance will be used interchangeably with
‘sheik desert popular romance’ or ‘imperial popular romance’ so as to distinguish it from other
romance genres.

8
‘low’, calling for considering all such texts as being worthy of study within
academic framework. Significantly, literature has been conceived of less in
terms of ‘literariness’ or aestheticism, but more in terms of its being a cultural
product, within which hegemonic and ideological practices are played out. This
is to say that cultural studies has sought to get rid of all forms of ‘elitism’,
showing special concern to popular cultural/literary forms. Thus, it is within
this fundamental move of cultural studies towards studying popular
culture/literature that this dissertation has endeavoured to investigate an area of
research which has been widely ignored in postcolonial studies, which is
‘imperial popular romance’.
For the sake of exploring some manifestations of orientalist/colonial
discourse in popular romance, three romance novels have been chosen as case
studies: Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco (1996), Catherine Assaro’s
The Veiled Web (1999), and Diana Palmer’s Lord of the Desert (2000). That
this romance genre is mostly governed by specific generic forms/formulas
might not pose any difficulty in selecting one or another novel to approach it
from a postcolonial perspective, since most of them tend to have similar
structures of representing the ‘Other’. That is, their main plot revolves around
the geographical and cultural displacement of a western heroine, either
willingly (e.g. travel) or unwillingly (e.g. kidnap), from her western space to an
oriental space, where cultural/civilizational contact between the ‘West’
(represented by the heroine) and ‘East’ ( represented mainly by a hybrid or
westernised Arab hero, plus natives) takes place. And it is throughout this
contact that issues of representation and stereotyping take place on different
levels.
Nevertheless, the choice of the above corpus is very much motivated by
means of location in the sense that most of the novels are set in Morocco; and
by means of their setting the ground to tackle the main concepts this research is
going to examine, which are gender, space and race. Accordingly, this
dissertation will cope with these three concepts from a postcolonial
perspective, with the intention to highlight how they are constructed and

9
represented in the light of each case study. In terms of gender, there will be
focus on how Arab Muslim women are represented as being ‘oppressed’ under
their religion and cultural milieu, showing at the same time how such
representations of Muslim women are meant to create a kind of antithesis
between them and western women. Concerning space, an attempt will be made
to illustrate how it is used as a means to construct a kind of “imaginative
geography”, to use Edward Said’s phrase, between the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’.
Finally, throughout race, attention will be addressed to reveal how the myth of
racial differences is dramatised in terms of representing the western race as
‘civilized’, ‘modern’, and ‘developed’, whereas the oriental race as being
‘uncivilised’, ‘primitive’, and ‘inferior’.
Having said that, this dissertation argues that regardless of popular
romance’s being a popular genre of literature, being written by women, and
governed by mass market, it constitutes a space wherein orientalist, colonial
and cultural discourses are conveyed to a large number of readers all over the
world, thus playing the same role of other imperial narratives. It will be also
argued that given the fact that most popular romance novels are written by
American writers, these novels herald the burgeoning American imperial
tendencies, after the collapse of the two great empires: Britain and France.
As far as the structure is concerned, this dissertation is split into two major
parts: one is theoretical, which is about popular culture and postcolonial
criticism, and the other is practical, which is about a postcolonial reading of the
three novels in question. The first part is meant, firstly, to contextualize
popular culture and romance within cultural studies framework, showing how
the emergence of cultural studies has given importance to the study of popular
cultural forms. Secondly, there will be an attempt to approach popular
culture/romance from a post colonial perspective for the sake of showing how
some popular forms can be embedded with orientalist ideologies. Finally, in
relation to popular romance, gender, space, and race will be examined from a
postcolonial perspective in order to pave the way for discussing them in the
practical part. Afterwards, the second part will capitalise on some postcolonial

10
concepts and theories in an endeavour to highlight how gender, space, and race
are (mis)represented in Never Marry in Morocco, The Veiled We, and in Lord
of the Desert. In this part, gender, space, and race will be separately discussed
in terms of how they are represented in each novel, thus devoting one section
to each concept. As far as the approach of this dissertation is concerned, it will
be a postcolonial one, using postcolonial reading as a method of analysis. It is
through this approach and method of reading that this dissertation can
demonstrate how popular romance is embedded with orientalist/colonial
ideologies.

11
Part one: Popular Culture and Postcolonial Criticism

Introduction:

What is popular culture? How does it work? What is its function in

society? What is its status within academic framework? To what extent the
conception of popular culture has changed with the emergence of cultural
studies? How is popular romance a part of popular culture? Can popular
culture/romance be embedded with orientalist/colonial discourse? If yes, how
does postcolonial criticism react to such discourse in popular forms? To what
extent postcolonial criticism is or is not ‘elitist’ in terms of approaching
imperial popular forms? How does postcolonialism deal with women’s
imperial writings? Do women’s imperial writings have similar function and
authority as male’s ones? How gender, space, and race are capitalized on in
imperial narratives to voice out certain orientalist/colonial ideologies? These
are some questions, among others, that this part will try to answer.
In dealing with popular romance from a postcolonial perspective, it seems
imperative to contextualize it within both popular culture and postcolonial
criticism frameworks. Unlike other imperial narratives, popular romance, as a
phenomenon of popular culture, is governed by many factors, such as mass
market, formulas, commodification and consumerism, which indeed make
difference in terms of how orientalist/colonial discourse is conveyed.
Henceforth, this part will be divided into three main sections, and all these
sections will try together to contextualize and relate popular romance to
popular culture as well as to colonial/postcolonial criticism, trying, meanwhile,
to answer some of the above questions.

1. Popular culture in context

This section seeks to contextualize popular culture/romance within the

framework of cultural studies. It is split into three sub-sections. The first
describes the fact that it is thanks to cultural studies’ interruption of ‘elitist’

12
definitions of culture that new areas of research, like popular culture/romance,
have stirred the eager of many scholars. The second tries to define the nature of
popular culture in terms of whether it is a construct from within or from
without. The last exhibits how popular romance, as part and parcel of popular
culture, is determined by mass culture, formulas, commodification, production
and consumerism. In general, this section tries to justify the choice of working
on popular culture/romance, and to show some of the main factors that have
led to scholars’ turn to the study of popular cultural forms.

1.1 Definitions of culture and /in Cultural Studies

The objects of study typical of Birmingham cultural Studies

include such popular, low, and mass cultural forms as
advertisements, everyday architectural, spaces, cartoons,
conversations, product designs, fashions, youth subcultures,
popular literary genres ( romances, thrillers, science fiction),
magazines, movies, rock musics, performance arts, photos,
postcards, radio, television, and video. 2 (Vincent B. Leitch)

The relationship between culture and cultural studies is so intricate and

close that one of the major preoccupations of cultural critics resides in how to
define culture. In broad terms, cultural studies can be described as the study of
culture; yet, the question which raises itself is which culture should be studied?
In order to elaborate on this question, this section will attempt to account for
the relationship between culture and cultural studies, showing at the same time
how some shifts in defining culture have revolutionized humanities and led to
the emergence of cultural studies.
Cultural studies by and large has emerged as one of the most intriguing
academic fields of research during the last quarter of the 20th century,
especially in the last decade; and as an interdisciplinary field it has its separate
courses and departments in every continent, which makes it a global
discipline.3 One of the defining features of cultural studies is its being a
politically oriented field in terms of its adoption of Marxist, non Marxist, and
2
Vincent B. Leitch, Cultural Criticism, Literary Theory, Postsructuralism (New York: Colombia
university press, 1992)146.
3
Indebted to: Millner, Andrew, and Browit Jeff, Contemporary Cultural Theory: An Introduction
(New York: Routledge. 2002) 1.

13
post-Marxist leftist traditions.4 How ideology and hegemony manifest in
cultural practices and products can be regarded as one of the main questions
cultural studies aims to investigate. In other words, cultural studies seeks to
investigate the materialization of hegemonic and ideological practices in the
daily cultural practices.
Concerning the historical development of cultural studies, Stuart Hall has
indicated many times that it is difficult to trace the origins of cultural studies,
or to define the nature of its development for it has witnessed many shifts and
interruptions from other disciplines since its emergence.5 In his article “The
Emergence of Cultural Studies and the Crisis of Humanities”, Hall elucidates
that the origins of cultural studies in its modern manifestations emanate from
the Birmingham Center for Cultural Studies. Still, he states that this does not
mean that Birmingham is the only way to do cultural studies as “Cultural
Studies was then, and has been ever since, an adaptation to its terrain; it has
always developed from a different matrix of interdisciplinary studies and
disciplines”. 6 Put differently, cultural studies is a context-bound field that to
each context its variables according to which it can be studied. For instance,
doing cultural studies in Morocco will of course differ from doing it in a
western society because of the incompatibility of variables or premises
between the two contexts.
Over and above, cultural studies is a recent field of study that owes its
emergence to the important changes which have occurred on the level of
defining culture. Before the appearance of cultural studies, it was only
‘Culture’ with capital ‘C’ that was considered as ‘worthy’ to be studied
‘academically’, the fact that results in ignoring and excluding many cultural

4
Indebted to: B. Leitch, Vincent. Cultural Criticism, Literary Theory, Postsructuralism (New York:
Colombia university press, 1992) x.
5
For more details about the origins of cultural studies, see for example: Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies
and the Centre: Some problematic and Problems”, Culture, Media and Language: Working Papers in
Cultural Studies, 1972-79. Ed. Stuart Hall, et al. (London: Routledge, 1980) 15-47. Explaining the
difficulty of tracing the origins of cultural studies, Hall says that “cultural studies is a discursive
formation, in Foucault sense. It has no simple origins.” Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies and its
Theoretical Legacies,” Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. Eds. David Morley and
Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996) 263.
6
Stuart Hall, “the emergence of Cultural Studiesand the Crisis of Humanities”, JSTOR Journal, vol.
53(summer, 1990), p.11-23. (http://www.jstor.org/), p.11

14
forms, which are regarded as belonging to ‘low’/‘popular’ culture.7 For
example, Ian Chambers argues that

until quite recently popular culture has lacked a ‘serious’

discourse. It was invariably disassociated from intellectual
life, usually considered its demonic antithesis, and so was
completely underrepresented in theory, except by negation; in
other words, it was not ‘culture. 8

Nevertheless, such elitist divisions between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture

have been revolutionized with Raymond Williams’s approach of the concept of
culture. According to him, culture is among those few words which have got
new meanings during eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; he sums up
those meanings as follows:

It came to mean, first, ‘a general state or habit of the mind’,

having close relations with the idea of human perfection.
Second, it came to mean ‘the general state of intellectual
development, in a society as a whole’. Third, it came to mean
‘the general body of arts’. Fourth, later in the century, it came
to mean ‘a whole way of life, material, intellectual and
spiritual’. 9

In this quotation, Williams describes how the meaning of culture has

developed throughout time, getting new meanings. For him, the fourth
meaning of culture is the one which has actually revolutionized previous
definitions of culture for it breaks out with all forms of elitist definitions of
culture. And in relation to cultural studies, it is also this fourth meaning of
culture as “a whole way of life” that gets cultural critics’ interest. The
importance of this meaning lies in its implication that culture is no longer that
one which is associated with the elite or considered in the “Arnoldian sense as
perfection, sweetness and light, the best that has been thought and said”.10
Rather, it has come to include all human cultural practices and products in their

7
Indebted to: Vincent B. Leitch, Cultural Criticism, Literary Theory, Postsructuralism (New York:
Colombia university press, 1992) 169-170.
8
Iain Chambers, “Waiting on the end of the world”. Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural
Studies. Eds. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), 204.
9
Raymond Williams, Culture and Society (New York: Penguin Books, 1963) 16.
10
Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) 34.

15
whole way of life. Thus, for cultural critics, what used to be considered
‘frivolous’, ‘popular’, or ‘non-canonical’ can be studied academically and be
of great help to interpret certain social, political as well as cultural issues.
Importantly enough, Robert Young contends that Leavisism has also
contributed directly or indirectly to the emergence of cultural studies.11 Robert
Young explains that by its emphasis on “high culture works” and its tendency
to preserve them as being valid through time and space, Leavisism gave birth
to new voices calling for abolishing any kind of barriers that set limits between
cultural literary forms. In other words, Leavisism was based on strict attitudes
towards the definition of culture, and literary works to be engaged in
educational syllabi in the sense that only the ‘best’ and ‘high’ literary works
are to be taught and analyzed. So, criticizing such ‘elitist’ judgments and
attitudes towards culture and its products falls in the heart of the cultural
studies project, which comes to unmask how those qualitative judgments of
culture are subjective, elitist and ideologically oriented.
Such criticisms of Leavisism, elitism and the call for studying “every day
culture” have resulted in a kind of hostility between cultural studies and
humanities. Stuart Hall argues that “at the birth of cultural studies, the
humanities were relentlessly hostile to its appearance, deeply suspicious of it,
and anxious to strangle, as it were, the cuckoo that had appeared in its nest”.12
That is, cultural studies has developed new paradigms of analysis which have
challenged the ones of literary studies. In cultural studies, literature has been
considered as one among many other cultural products that can be subject to
cultural analysis. With the emergence of Cultural Studies and poststructuralist
cultural criticism, those evaluative and judgmental attitudes cease to exist since
cultural criticism, as Vincent Leitch argues, focuses on the whole spectrum of
the so-called “non-canonical and “non-aesthetic” artifacts, phenomena, and

11
Simon During, Introduction, The Cultural Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1993) 1-25.
12
Stuart Hall, “The Emergence of Cultural Studiesand the Crisis of Humanities” JSTOR Journal, vol.
53 (summer, 1990), p.12. [17, 07 2005] (http://www.jstor.org/).

16
discourses”13 and, on the other hand, “renounces literary discourse and
literary theory as narrow and privileged”. 14
Therefore, it is thanks to such shift of interest from focus on ‘literariness’
and ‘high brow’ forms of literature to focus on the daily culture that cultural
critic’s concern is addressed to mass cultural forms like “advertisements,
cartoons, fashions, youth subcultures, popular literary genres (romances,
thrillers, science fiction), magazines, movies, arts, photos, postcards, radio,
television, and video”.15 In fact, such turn to such areas of research is to be
considered as an unprecedented move in humanities which heralds the
deterioration of classical topics and studies which regard ‘literariness’ and
‘canon’ as the basis of conducting any study. Henceforth, it is within the spirit
of this move that the coming issues are going to be approached.

1.2 Conceptualizing popular culture

As indicated in the last section, cultural studies has been able to bring into
light many areas of research, like popular/mass culture, after their being
excluded for long time from academic spheres. In fact, there are some who
would reduce the whole field of cultural studies into “the study of mass or
popular culture”.16 And this is true since most issues tackled in cultural studies
are part and parcel of popular culture. If so, two main questions need to be
answered: what does this popular culture mean? And who are the makers of
this culture?
Broadly speaking, there are two main contradictory answers to the above
questions. The first would define popular culture as that culture which
emanates from people and expresses their interests and daily life; the second
one, however, would define it as a culture which is imposed on people from

13
B. Leitch, Vincent. Cultural Criticism, Literary Theory, Postsructuralism (New York: Colombia
university press, 1992) 2.
14
Leitch, xiv.
15
See the first quotation this section starts with: Vincent. B. Leitch, Cultural Criticism, Literary
Theory, Postsructuralism. New York: Colombia university press, 1992, 146.
16
John Hartley, “Culture from Arnold to Schwarzenegger”, A Short History of Cultural Studies
(London: Sage, 2003) 31.

17
above, and does not serve their interest. These two contrasting definitions of
popular culture are succinctly put by John Fisk as follows:

“Popular culture in industrial societies is contradictory

to its core. On the one hand it is industrialized- its
commodities produced and distributed by a profit-motivated
industry that follows only its own economic interests. But, on
the other hand, it is of the people, and the people’s interests
17
are not those of the industry.”

To delve into this contradiction, attention will be addressed to two main

opposing theories about popular culture. The first has to do with the ideology
of mass culture, presented by “mass culture theory”, and Adorno and
Horkhiemer in their conceptualization of Culture Industry; and the second one
has to do with the populist attitude towards popular culture, which will be
represented by John Fiske.
First and foremost, the attitude of “mass culture theory” towards
mass/popular culture is negative in the sense that it defines mass culture as
“popular culture which is produced by mass production industrial techniques
and is marketed for profit to a mass public of consumers.”18 Historically, the
emergence of this mass culture has been due to many factors, such as the rise
of large scale and mechanized types of industrial production, the growth of
populated cities, the disappearance of agrarian based work tied to the land, the
on-going increase of communal sense, and the secularization of cities.19 In
other words, mass culture can be described as an offshoot of capitalism, whose
sole goal is materialistic gains.
Therefore, human relations in mass society, Straniti argues, are no longer
characterized by that communal, spiritual, and moral sense; rather, people
relate to each other like atoms in a physical or chemical compound, being ruled

17
John Fiske, “Commodities and Culture”, Understanding Popular Culture ( New York: Routledge
1989) 23.
18
Domenic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 1995)10.
Henceforth, all the main ideas about “mass culture theory” will be cited in the light of Dominic
Straniti’s analysis of this theory in this book.
19
Indebted to: Straniti 6.

18
by “commodity fetishism”.20 Put differently, such deterioration of human
mores and the dominance of materialist ones have come as a result of the on-
going rise of capitalist thinking, in which human values, principles and ethics
are no longer considered, but can be sold for the sake of making money.
Moreover, in “mass culture theory”, the consumer or the audience is
conceived of as being helpless, passive, and unable to resist mass culture
temptations, which are exemplified chiefly in the myriad advertisements
consumers are bombarded with. Actually, the success in subjugating and
‘slaving’ consumers resides in the ability of the producer to formulate products
in standardized formulas which can appeal to different consumers. To say the
least, Dominic succinctly argues that popular culture is:

a standardized, formulaic, repetitive and superficial culture,

which celebrates trivial, sentimental, immediate and false
pleasures at the expense of serious, intellectual, time honored
21
and authentic values.

Hence, this argument displays that popular culture is a culture of formulas,

based on satisfying trivial or false needs on the account of real needs. And this
culture is primarily oriented by criteria of marketability and profitability, being
blind to the interest or benefits of consumers. Most mass market products are
meant to push consumers to buy more and more, though they can be of less use
for consumers. Interestingly, culture, art, and literature are the most cultural
products that are negatively influenced as a consequence of these mass culture
trends. Literature, for instance, has become as any commercial product based,
not on creativity or art, but on formulas and marketability. Popular romance is
an example of such literature, which has been commercialized and emptied of
any sense of artistic or creative aspects. In sum, mass culture, as argued by
“mass culture theory”, can not be a culture of people, but an imposed culture
which go against interests of masses.

20
“Commodity Fetishism” is a concept coined by Karl Marx to refer to the domination of material
relations or commodity exchange on human interrelations. That is, commodities or objects come to
govern producers’ and consumers’ thinking and behaviours, the fact that gives value to objects over
human relations. See: Dino Felluga , “Definition: Commodity Fetishism”, accessed on July 2009,
[http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/marxism/terms/commodity.html]
21
Straniti 14.

19
 Similarly, Adorno and Horkheimer’s definition of popular culture is
somewhat like the above one. Their conceptualization of popular/mass culture
is to be summed up in their concept of “culture industry”. Still, Adorno argues
that mass culture should not be used interchangeably with culture industry,
arguing that

the term culture industry was perhaps used for the first time in
the book Dialectic of Enlightenment, which Horkheimer and I
published in Amsterdam in 1947. In our drafts we spoke of
'mass culture'. We replaced that expression with 'culture
industry' in order to exclude from the outset the interpretation
agreeable to its advocates: that it is a matter of something like
a culture that arises spontaneously from the masses
themselves, the contemporary form of popular art.22

In saying this, Adorno tries to display that culture industry does not
emanate from masses, but it is imposed from above because this culture does
not come “spontaneously from the masses themselves”. For him, mass/popular
culture is supposed to be produced by masses. However, he argues that this is
not possible since it is culture industry that does fabricate cultural forms and
commodities in specific ways so that they can manipulate and shape the
culture of masses.
In “Culture Industry as Mass Deception”, both Adorno and Horkheimer
argue that culture industry is mainly about creating uniformity both in terms of
commodities and consumers so that there can be an identical relation between
the two.23 And to attain this uniformity, culture industry relies on the
technology of standardization, pseudo-individualization and mass production.
It is by so doing that the power of culture industry appears in terms of its
ability to master the differences of masses. There might be slight differences
between commodities, like in the case of popular romance novels which are
simply based on repetitive formulas with slight differences, but such
differences are illusionary or, as described by Adorno and Horkeimer, pseudo-

22
Theodor Adorno, “Culture industry reconsidered”, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass
Culture (London: Routledge, 1991) 98.
23
Indepted to : Theodor, Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “Culture industry as mass deception”, The
Cultural Studies Reader, Ed. Simon During (London: Routledge, 1993) 29-44.

20
individual and reside in “exchange value”, not in the “use value”.24 Such
pseudo-differences are used simply as a means to excite consumers to consume
more and more. Thereby, culture industry becomes a means to enslave, and
exploit masses, leaving them with no choice-making, but to consume.
Such above attitudes of Adorno and Horkheimer can be regarded as being
very pessimistic and defeating. In fact, we can not deny the power of “culture
industry” in shaping tastes and needs of masses; but this again does not mean
that people are completely vulnerable, and helpless in front of this “monster”
of culture industry. Masses can make choices and are free to select what to
buy and what not. Also, not all products of culture industry are useless for
masses; they can be of great help in facilitating their lifestyle. Still, what can be
considered as dangerous is when a consumer is governed not by consumption
but by consumerism. Consumption is to consume as much as one is in need of
while consumerism is to consume more than what is needed.
Furthermore, in “Culture Industry Reconsidered”, Adorno comes, with the
same gloomy tone, to reiterate the same ideas he discussed with Horkheimer in
their previous work about Culture Industry. What is important in this last essay
is Adorno’s emphasis on how culture industry contributes to the objectification
of the masses. Adorno contends that

in all its branches, products which are tailored for

consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine
the nature of that consumption, are manufactured more or less
according to plan ... The culture industry intentionally
integrates its consumers from above. To the detriment of both
it forces together the spheres of high and low art, separated for
thousands of years … Thus, although the culture industry
undeniably speculates on the conscious and unconscious state
of the millions towards which it is directed, the masses are not
primary, but secondary, they are an object of calculation; an
appendage of the machinery. The customer is not king, as the
culture industry would have us believe, not its subject but its
object.25 (Added emphasis)
24
‘Exchange value’ stands for the material value of a commodity in the market while ‘use value’
stands for the usefulness and practicality of the commodity for the consumer. And in industrial society,
as Marx and Adorno explained, it is the ‘exchange value’ that dominates ‘use value’. See: Domenic
Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 1995) 57.
25
Theodor Adorno, “Culture industry reconsidered”, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass
Culture (London: Routledge, 1991) 103.

21
 In this passage, Adorno lays bare how the masses are framed and
conceived of in the system of culture industry. Before a consumer knows what
to buy, culture industry draws plans and formulas, through which it anticipates
what consumers want or need. Consumers become powerless and passive since
they are not free to buy what they want, but what culture industry has produced
for them. In this sense, it is culture industry that shapes tastes and preferences
of the masses, the fact which justifies Adorno’s idea that culture industry
“intentionally integrates its consumers from above”. In a word, Adorno’s
conception of popular culture is that this culture is an imposed one, and does
not express peoples’ culture. Rather, people are exploited, manipulated and
enslaved by this culture.
Surprisingly enough, John Fiske’s conceptualisation of popular culture is
totally the opposite of what is mentioned above. Fiske is one among those who
argue for the idea that popular culture is of the people, and can not be imposed
on them because “culture is a living, active process: it can be developed only
26
from within, it can not be imposed from without or above.” In saying this,
Fiske tries to refute Adorno’s theory of “culture industry”, which implies that
popular culture is imposed on the masses from above. Supporting this idea,
Fisk argues that

Popular culture is made by the people at the interface

between the products of the culture industries and
everyday life. Popular culture is made by the people, not
imposed on them; it stems from within, from bellow, not
from the above. 27

In this manner, Fiske represents popular culture in terms of populism,

meaning that popular culture can not be understood as a culture which is
imposed upon the thoughts and actions of people, but as an expression of
people’s voices.28 To sum up, where mass culture theory and culture industry

26
John Fiske, “Commodities and Culture,” Understanding Popular Culture (New York: Routledge,
1989) 23.
27
Fiske 25.
28
Indebted to: Domenic Strinati, An introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London: Routledge,
1995) 255.

22
theory regard popular/mass culture as being negative, derogatory, and being
imposed from the above, the populist trend puts high premium on individual’s
freedom, their right of choice making, and their role of making their culture
from within.
In making a comparison between the two above conceptualizations of
popular culture, it is observed that both attitudes tend to be extreme in the
sense that they either consider popular culture as ‘bad’, ‘negative’, and “being
imposed from above”, or as a culture of the people, made from within, and
express their needs and interests. Actually, it should be argued that the two
above forms of popular culture do exist at the same time, but with varying
degrees. There is culture that comes from within masses, and expresses their
whole life; and at the same time, there is culture which comes from above,
being imposed on masses. Hence, taking an in-between position between the
two above opposing attitudes might be a less extreme, and moderate attitude.
In the coming section, popular romance, as one main form of popular culture,
will be discussed in relation to mass market, trying to see whether popular
romance expresses people’s needs, or it is a cultural product imposed on them.

1.3 On popular romance and mass culture

Popular romance is unarguably one of the main types of mass produced

popular fiction, whose primary function is wish fulfilment, and in which love
and fantasy themes are the dominant ones.29 Basically, popular romance is
written by women, addressed primarily to women and tackles feminine
occupations, preoccupations and aspirations, focussing on the heroine’s quest
for love.30 The modern romance has developed through three main stages,
moving from the domestic novel, based on how women deal with their houses,
and their husbands, to the working girl novel, in which women are seen to have
access to factories, and offices; and lastly the happy novel, similar to the
second one, but distinguished by its being less religious, and its focus on
29
Scott McCracken, “Popular Romance”, Pulp: Reading popular fiction (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1998) 75.
30
George Paizis, “The Romantic Novel and its critics”, Love and the Novel: The Poetics and Politics
of Romantic Fiction (Houndsmill : Macmillan, 1998) 29.

23
women’s reliance on the self.31 This happy novel is also much about fantasy
and ‘away’, giving rise to Edith Hull’s The Sheik (1921), a prominent novel
which itself has led to the rise of novels described as ‘sheik desert’ or the
‘away’ romance.32
Like other popular genres, it is not surprising that popular romance novels
have been subject to exclusion and denigration, being considered as inferior,
badly written, and archaic in comparison to ‘highbrow literature’. Scott
McCracken argues that popular romance’s poor reception in modern era is
mainly due to two factors:

first, an association from the 1930s onwards of popular

romantic fiction with mass market formula publishing; and
second, the identification of that market with women readers
and their supposed concerns- love, desire, fantasy, and
imagination.”33

In saying this, McCracken stresses on elitism and gender politics as two main
factors for excluding these romance novels. I.e. most romance novels are
written not out of creativity and talent, but out of a commercial drive to sell as
many novels as possible. This fact, among others, exempts them from being
‘canonized’. And that these novels are written mainly by women, whose
writings in general have been for long time ill-received, is another reason for
that exclusion.
Significantly, given the fact that popular romance is part and parcel of
popular fiction, the latter has been defined as being less “serious” and less
valuable in comparison to literary fiction. In her review of Ken
Gelder’s Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of the Literary Field,
Anne Galligan highlights some of the opposing characteristics made by Pierre
Bourdieu between popular literary fiction and high fiction.34 I.e., where literary

31
Paizis 29.
32
It is this genre of romance that will be the centre of our focus in this research. This romance genre
revolves around a love story between a western heroine and a sheikh from the orient; and it is though
this love relationship that questions of mis/representation, orientalisation and stereotyping take place.
33
Scott McCracken, “Popular Romance”, Pulp: Reading popular fiction (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1998) 74.
34
Anne Galligan , A Review of Ken Gelder's Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of the
Literary Field , 15 April 2006 , Issue 39 - 40, September 2006, Australian Human reviews,

24
fiction is considered to be autonomous, a form of high cultural product, written
by authors, based on creativity and complexity, and expressed in language of
art; popular fiction, however, is deemed to be heterogeneous, a form of low
cultural production, written by writers (not authors), based on industry (not
creativity) and simplicity, and expressed in language of industry.35 These are
some defining features which make difference between literary fiction and
popular fiction, and which exhibit the ‘highness’ of the first over the latter. In
effect, it is this nature of popular fiction as being a kind of commercial
commodity, based on industry and profit making that makes of it target to
criticism and exclusion.
Still, with the emergence of cultural studies, such forms of ‘low brow’
literature are devoted a great importance in terms of their being useful to
explore some social, political, and even ideological factors that are played out
in their production as well as consumption. Like it is the case in this
dissertation, regardless of the commercial or ‘cheap’ nature of popular
romance, the latter is going to be approached from a post colonial perspective
so as to consider how it contributes to the construction of stereotypes about the
orient in general. Thus, in studying such popular literary forms, it is their
ideological discourse which will be of great importance, rather than their
artistic or literary features.
Moreover, “the development of contemporary romance is part of the wider
phenomenon of mass culture, itself a product of the industrial revolution.”36
And since popular romance is a mass market commodity par excellence,
romance publisher and writers rely on specific repetitive formulas which are
based on the demands, needs, and tastes of the masses for the sake of
increasing their selling opportunities. In popular romance, as indicated by
George Paizis, the participation of the readership as a group is very essential,
and it is also so perhaps to the functioning of all products of mass culture. In
this respect, to understand the logics of popular romance writing, we should

[ http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-September-2006/galligan.html]
35
Ibid.
36
George Paizis, “The Romantic Novel and its Critics”, Love and the Novel: The Poetics and Politics
of Romantic Fiction (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1998) 27.

25
distinguish between mainstream literature and category literature. The
difference between the two is explained by George Paizis as follows:

A working distinction between mainstream and

category literature could be that in the former case the author
writes a book, offers it to a publisher who in turn offers it to
the reader. In the last case of category literature, the process is
reversed. The reader demands something of the publisher who
37
in turn finds an author capable or willing to supply it.

In the light of this difference between mainstream and category literature,

popular romance is to be included within the latter type since romance writers
are quintessentially subject to the demands of publishers, who themselves are
subject to the mass market demands. To say it another way, it is the reader’s
expectations and demands that determine what romance publishers should
publish. This fact displays the decadence of art, creativity, and talent, and the
domination of materialistic values in writing literature. This fact also displays
how capitalism leaves no area of human life intact; it makes no distinction
between what is cultural or artistic and what is material or commercial. The
sole goal of capitalists is to make as much money as possible irrespective of
what humanity can lose out of such capitalist way of thinking.
Most importantly, regardless of the absence of any ‘literary’, ‘artistic’, or
creative drive in popular romance novels, it is these novels that sell well than
any other mass paperback. Statistically speaking, annual sales of these
romances exceed 180 million copies internationally per year.38 And Carol
Ricker-Wilson states that

a startling 48.6 percent of all mass market paperbacks

presently published in North America are popular romances
… Danielle Steel has sold over 100 million copies of her
novels in North America, grossing an estimated $25 million a
year. Two hundred million harlequin novels, available in
twenty-three countries, are purchased worldwide annually. 39

37
Paizis 47.
38
Scott McCracken, “Popular Romance”, Pulp: Reading popular fiction (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1998) 75.
39
Carol Ricker-Wilson “Busting Textual bodices: Gender, Reading, and the Popular Romance”, The
English Journal, Vol.8 Jan., 1999, pp. 57-64, Jstor; 03 April 2007.[ htt:wwww.jstor.org]

26
 Indeed, such statistics reveal a lot in terms of the large number of
popular romance novels which are consumed all over the world.40 This can
explain the power of mass market or, to use Adorno and Horkheimer’s
concept, “culture industry” in terms of its mechanics which can drive people to
buy those mass market novels, though they are in fact of less value for
consumers. Albeit this attitude can be somewhat elitist, it can not be denied
that these mass market novels are empty of any real benefit or pleasure; their
writers and editors seek only material profits, having no intention to enrich
human literary or cultural repertoire. We are in fact fully aware that to each
one his/her tastes and likes, but most of popular romance readers are widely
subject to the impact of culture industry and its capitalist seducing techniques.
In her attempt to explain this increasing demand for popular romance
novels, Janice Radway ascribes the large number of romance readers to two
main reasons:

First, female readers constitute more than the half of the

book-reading public… Harlequin now claims that its million-
dollar advertising campaign reach one out of every ten women
in America and that 40 percent of those reached can usually
be converted onto harlequin readers …

Second, romance novels obviously provide a reading

experience enjoyable enough for large numbers of women so
41
that they wish to repeat that experience whenever they can.

Still, she confirms that such popularity of romance novels is not heavily
related only to women readership, but other factors have also contributed to
that popularity. For her, the technological inventions, organisational changes in
the publishing and book selling industries, and the focus on book production,
distribution, advertising, and marketing techniques have altogether contributed

40
In one of the coming sections, which is about “popular romance in postcolonial discourse”, it will
be argued that regardless of such large number of romance copies, especially the ones written about the
orient, there have been less interest in the study of the orientalist discourse in such genres from a post
colonial perspective. The idea I want to lay emphasis on is that such romances are indeed more
influential in terms of mis/representing the “the oriental”, especially because they are mass produced
and can have a large influence on a huge number of masses.
41
Janice Radway, “The institutional matrix of Romance”, The Cultural StudiesReader, ed. Simon
During, (London: Routledge, 1993) 452-453.

27
to the recent romance’s success.42 In effect, what Radway tries to articulate
here is the fact that the burgeoning mechanics and methods of mass market and
capitalism have heavily contributed to facilitating the tasks of production and
consumption of books, and thus resulting in having access to as many readers
as possible.
Academically speaking, a real interest in popular romance as a genre
coincided with the greater political awareness of the late sixties and seventies,
especially with the emergence of feminist movements.43 At that time, there
were two attitudes towards popular romance. The first accuses such romances
as being a hegemonic means which tries to naturalise “marriage as a natural
and inevitable form of sexual relations and reproduction, and domesticity as
the only and proper space for women”.44 So, popular romance is seen from a
feminist perspective as being complicit with the social norms of women’s
subordination to men, and that it enhances those social and cultural constructs
of femininity and masculinity. The second attitude, pioneered by Janice
Radway, contends that popular romance is highly desirable and beneficial for
women, and that it meets the needs of women which are extremely unfulfilled
in marriage, enabling them to escape from the patriarchal society that confines
and represses them.45 This opposition explains the above contradiction that
exists between proponents and opponents of popular culture.
Hence, given the above two attitudes toward popular romance, it is apparent
that popular romance, like any other popular culture form, also sheds light on
the controversial question of whether popular culture is an expression of
people’s needs and culture, or is it an ideological form of culture imposed from
above. In this sense, some would see popular romance as a means of
expressing people’s needs and interests while others see it as a means of
42
For more details about the main factors and institutions that have made romance a bestselling genre
see : Janice Radway , “ The institutional matrix of Romance”, The Cultural Studies Reader; Ed.
Simon during (London: Routledge, 1993).
43
George Paizis, “The Romantic Novel and its Critics”, Love and the Novel: The Poetics and Politics
of Romantic Fiction (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1998) 33.
44
Stuart Hall, et al., Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79
(London: Routledge, 1980) 258-259.
45
Tania Fera-VanGent, “Popular Romance Novels: Seeking out the “Sisterhood””,(Rock University
library,2005), 25 may 2009
[http://www.archive.org/stream/popularromanceno00ferauoft/popularromanceno00ferauoft_djvu.txt]

28
oppression and exploitation. Still, in the coming sections, popular romance will
be seen as having another function which is that of stereotyping, ‘Othering’,
and exoticizing the orient, and thus carrying on the same orientalist/colonial
mission.

2. Post/colonial discourse and popular culture/romance

After contextualizing both popular culture and popular romance within

cultural studies frame work, we will now turn to approach such popular forms
from a postcolonial perspective, trying to display how orientalist discourse is
manifested in popular culture/romance. This section, which is divided into
three sub-sections, will attempt to show the materialization of
colonial/orientalist discourse in American popular culture, namely in popular
romance and Hollywood movies. It will be also an endeavour to delineate how
imperial popular romance is underestimated in postcolonial criticism, though it
fundamentally contributes to intensifying and prolonging orientalist/colonial
stereotypes and ideas.

2.1 The Orientalist discourse in American popular culture

Broadly speaking, it is since the emergence of postcolonial studies that

criticism has been largely devoted to criticising western imperial “canon”. But
in recent years, much focus has been devoted to the study of the manifestation
of the colonialist/orientalist discourse in contemporary popular culture. Such
shift from the study of ‘canon’ to the study of popular culture has been made
possible with the emergence of cultural studies, in which focus has been
basically dedicated to the study of the “popular”.
In terms of the colonial/orientalist discourse, popular culture is described as
having a huge capacity to spread stereotypes in large scale since most popular
cultural forms are massively mass consumed. Thus, the power of popular
culture forms resides in their mass influence. Stressing on the mass influence
of popular culture, Ella shohat and Robert Stam argue that

29
 although progressive literary intellectuals sometimes disdain
the reaches of popular culture, it is precisely at the popular
level that Eurocentrism generates its mass base in everyday
feeling.46

Interestingly, Edward Said is one among the first ones who have pointed
out to the materialization of the orientalist discourse in popular culture,
especially in the American popular culture. For Said, United States is emerging
as an imperial superpower which comes to replace the old imperial forces,
namely England and France.47 Such imperial emergence of United States is
exemplified chiefly in its international intervention in many global conflicts
and issues. In this relevance, Said confirms that there is a sort of “transference
of a popular anti-Semitic animus from a Jewish to an Arab target”.48 Such
transference features in American popular culture, in which Arabs are heavily
subject to (mis)representation and vilification. Describing how Arab Muslims’
image is distorted in American popular culture, Edward Said states that

since the World War II, and more noticeably after each of the
Arab-Israeli wars, the Arab Muslim has become a figure in the
American popular culture … Cartoons depicting an Arab
Sheik standing behind a gasoline pump turned up consistently
… In the films and television the Arab is Associated either
with lechery or bloodthirsty dishonesty. He appears as an
oversexed degenerate, capable, it is true of cleverly devious
intrigues, but essentially sadistic, treacherous, low. Slave
trader, camel driver, and moneychanger, colourful scoundrel:
these are some traditional Arab roles in the cinema.49

This passage is taken from the last part of Said’s Orientalsim which is
entitled “Orientalism Now”. After discussing in length how orientalist
discourse features in many spheres of western Knowledge especially in literary
and fictional works, Said ends his book by calling our attention to the fact that
orientalism never ends but embodies in new other forms, namely in popular
culture. Emphasizing this idea, Said argues that “the massive, quasi-material
knowledge stored in the annals of modern European Orientalism … has been
46
Ella shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (New
York: Routledge, 1994) 5.
47
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) 285.
48
Said 286.
49
Said 284 -287.

30
dissolved and released into new forms. A wide variety of representations of the
orient roams the culture”.50 And popular culture is indeed one of those forms
of this culture in which the orientalist discourse is embodied. Of great
importance is the fact that Said stresses on American popular culture as a
source where these orientalist ideologies are materialised. It is so because
United States is considered nowadays as the last imperial superpower, which
seeks to dominate the world, after the fall of the two great empires: France and
Britain.
In examining the above passage, Said unveils how Arabs have been target
to distortion, misrepresentation in American popular culture especially in
American cinema. And, as explained by Said, the Arab-Israel conflict has been
one of the main factors that have led to the misrepresentation, vilification and
demonization of Arabs in western media, especially in American popular
culture. This can display westerners and Americans’ affiliations with the
Israeli, and their conspiracy against Arabs. Significantly, given the fact that
what Said says about the misrepresentation of Arabs in western media took
place since 1970s, what we are in fact witnessing nowadays, especially after 11
September events, as far as the distortion of the image of Arabs in western
media is not something new, but can be traced back to the early ages.
In a vivid study about this long past of western misrepresentations of Arabs
in popular culture, Jack Sheehan’s polemical book Reel Bad Arabs: How
Hollywood Vilifies a People displays in concrete terms how American popular
culture has been a means of stereotyping and vilifying Arabs in particular.51 In
this book, Shaheen has listed over than 900 films, produced in the last century
by Hollywood, in which Arabs are vilified in an unimaginable way. He
proclaims that

from 1896 until today, filmmakers have collectively

indicted all Arabs as Public Enemy # 1- brutal, heartless,
uncivilised religious fanatics and money-mad cultural

50
Said 285.
51
Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: how Hollywood Vilifies a people, (New York : Olive Branch
Press, 2001).

31
 “other” bent on terrorising civilised Westerners, especially
Christians and Jews.52

Likewise, Shaheen argues that most films that he has studied represent
Arabs either as terrorists or as sheiks surrounded by ‘harems’, but hardly as
normal individuals living happily with their families and their children. Given
the global trend of Hollywood, Shaheen explains that Hollywood has
succeeded to have a massive influence both on American audiences and on
world viewers in terms of how they should perceive of Arabs via bombarding
them repeatedly with the same negative, biased and dehumanising images
about Arabs. Having said that, it is not surprising to see some westerners or
Americans who hold racist and hateful attitudes towards Arabs and Muslims,
which can sometimes be translated into violent behaviours towards some Arab
Muslims in the west.
Importantly, Shaheen contends that most of the stereotypes made about
Arabs have not come out of the vacuum, but were inherited from those many
stories, tales, and novels written about the orient, in which Arabs are
represented as living in desolate, exotic deserts, and corrupt palaces with loose
harems and beautiful women.53 Thereby, film makers have taken advantage of
that rich literary repertoire to more dramatise and reiterate the same images,
stereotypes, and clichés made about ‘Orientals’.
Put differently, the filmic representation of Arabs is very closely related to
how they are depicted in different fictional and literary forms. This displays a
kind of interlink between the filmic and the literary representations of Arabs.
Explaining this connection between fiction and cinema or media in general,
shohat and Stam argue that

cinema emerged exactly at the point when enthusiasm for

imperial project was spreading beyond elites into the popular
strata, partly thanks to popular fictions and exhibitions … the
cinema adopted the popular fictions of colonialist writers and

52
Shaheen 2.
53
Indebted to : Shaheen 7-8.

32
 absorbed popular genres like the “conquest fiction” of the
American southwest.54

In saying this, shohat and Stam stress on the essential role of fiction in cinema
making. And also of great significance is that popular romance novels have
also been an important source from which many films are made in Hollywood.
For instance, E.M. Hull’s The Sheik, which is considered as the prototype of
romance novels, has been turned to a film, starred by Valentino. In this respect,
it should be argued that imperial popular romances are also part and parcel of
American popular culture, and these novels, like Hollywood movies, are mass
consumed, and thus contribute to engendering orientalist stereotypes among
the masses in a large scale.
In the coming two sub-sections, an endeavour will be made to discuss the
imperial dimension in popular romance, trying to examine some possible
reasons that have contributed to the downplaying of popular romance in
postcolonial studies.

2.2 Popular romance in postcolonial discourse

The study of imperial popular romance seems to be downplayed in

postcolonial criticism, in which a great deal of attention has been devoted to
the study of ‘canon’. In this sense, the question of elitism raises itself: is it
because popular romance is classified as a ‘low brow literature’ that it has been
neglected? That post colonial critics are elitist in terms of the choice of works
to be criticised is difficult to prove since there have been many marginalised
genres like travel literature and journalism, which have been approached in
postcolonial studies.
As an argument to refute the idea that post colonial criticism is elitist, Bart
Moore- Gilbert argues that postcolonial criticism has helped to

54
Ella shohat and Robert Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (New
York: Routledge, 1994) 100.

33
 undermine the traditional conception of disciplinary
boundaries, focusing on the importance of approaching
literature together with history, politics, sociology and
other art forms rather than in isolation from the
multiple material and intellectual contexts which
determine its production and reception.55

That is, the main concern of postcolonial criticism is to account for literature in
relation to history, ideology, and politics, trying to avoid any possible
disciplinary boundaries between areas of knowledge. We can also understand
from the above statement of Gilbert that postcolonial criticism is also
concerned with politics of production and consumption in terms of how certain
forms of knowledge are produced and consumed, and what effect they can
have on consumers. Furthermore, Gilbert stresses on some of the main
important characteristics of postcolonial criticism in terms of displaying that it
has mainly to do with all forms of text, be they ‘high’ or ‘low’. He puts this
idea as follows:

Postcolonial criticism has contributed to the interrogation of

received distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture
which has been such a feature of cultural criticism more
generally in recent decades. For example, a recurrent concern
for some postcolonial critics has been to challenge the
assumptions governing discriminations between literature and
oral narratives, or orature. In postcolonial discourse analysis,
meanwhile, there has been a proliferating interest in hitherto
marginalized genres such as journalism and travel writing, a
project initiated by Said’s Orientalism.56

Of great importance in this quote is Gilbert’s attempt to associate

postcolonial criticism chiefly with the criticism of the marginalised genres.
This association is in fact intended to break that dividing line between ‘high’
and ‘low’ genres as far as postcolonial criticism is concerned. To buttress this
position, Gilbert lists some researches devoted mainly to the study of
marginalised genres such as Dennis porter’s Haunted Journeys: Desire and
Transgression in travel writing, Marry Louis Pratt’s Imperial Eyes, and David

55
Gilbert Bart-Moore. Postcolonial Theory; Contexts, Practices, Politics (London: Verso, 1997) 8.
56
Bart-Moore 8-9.

34
Spur’s The rhetoric of empire: colonial discourse in Journalism , to name but a
few.
Taking into consideration Gilbert’s above arguments makes it difficult to
regard postcolonial criticism as being elitist, at least in terms of the choice of
corpus. Still, the question of popular romance has not yet been answered. That
is, regardless of Gilberts’ focus on the idea that postcolonial criticism is
concerned mainly with marginalised genres like travel literature and
journalism, imperial popular romance remains somewhat absent from these
marginalised genres. Such absence is largely concretised in the writings of the
holy trinity: Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gyatri Spivack, who are
considered the main founding figures of post colonial criticism.
Therefore, the issue of ‘elitism’ can be still valid as far as the exclusion of
popular romance from postcolonial criticism is concerned. For example, a
sense of elitism can be detected in Edward Said’s writings, particularly in
Orienalism and Culture and Imperialism. Said’s elitism resides both in his
definition of culture and in the corpus he works on in his criticism of western
colonial discourse. In his introduction to Culture and Imperialism, Said gives
two definitions to what he means by culture, and it is in the second definition
where Said appears to hold an elitist definition of culture. In Said’s words,
culture is

a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each

society’s reservoir of the best that has been known and
thought, as Mathew Arnold put it in the 1860s. Arnold
believed that culture palliates, if it does not altogether
neutralize, the ravages of a modern, aggressive, mercantile,
and brutalizing urban existence. You read Dante or
Shakespeare in order to keep with the best thought and
known, and also to see yourself, your people, society, and
tradition in their best light.57

According to this definition, we can see that Said is influenced by the

Arnoldian definition of culture, which is essentially an elitist one. Likewise, it
is also on the basis of Arnold’s definition that elitist classification of literature

57
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1994) xiii.

35
into “canonical” and “non-canonical” takes place. This elitism in terms of
literature is exemplified in Said’s saying “you read Dante or Shakespeare in
order to keep with the best thought and known, and also to see yourself, your
people, society, and tradition in their best light”. This idea is more emphasized
in Said’s following statement:

The novels I consider here I analyse because first of all I find

them estimable and admirable works of art and learning, in
which I and many other readers take pleasure and from which
we derive profit. Second the challenge is to connect them not
only with that pleasure and profit but also with the imperial
process of which they were manifestly and unconcealed a
part…58

Given Said’s above criteria of selecting his corpus (estimable, admirable

works of art and learning, pleasure, and profit), we can see in evident terms
how Said is elitist in doing so. Such elitist criteria in choosing the corpus can
account for the exclusion of popular romance novels from Said’s corpus since
such novels does not meet the above criteria. It can not be denied that most
popular novels lack that sense of ‘literariness’, creativity and originality. They
are mass-produced, based on formula system, and written for making
commercial benefits. Such nature of these romance novels contributes to their
being ill-received among scholars and intellectuals.
Still, since the major goal of postcolonial criticism is to deconstruct and
write back against western colonial/orientalist ideologies and stereotypes, there
should not be, in fact, any distinction between “high brow” or “low brow”
forms of literature as long as they communicate colonialist/orientalist
ideologies and stereotypes. Put differently, So long as there is a cultural or
literary form of stereotyping or ‘Othering’, it is highly demanded that such
forms should be criticised and deconstructed. Otherwise, postcolonial criticism
is going to be governed, not by the duty to write back and criticise western
biased and Eurocentric discourse, but more by criteria of ‘literariness’ and
‘aestheticism’.

58
Said, Culture and Imperialism xiv.

36
 More importantly, in addition to the question of elitism, gender can be
considered as another factor which has contributed to the exclusion of imperial
popular romance novels from postcolonial criticism, especially if we know that
these novels are mostly written by women. And women in general have
suffered a kind of exclusion, not only in postcolonial criticism but in many
other disciplines.59 Again, Edward Said has been criticised for his exclusion of
imperialist women writers from his book Orientalism, thus ignoring the role of
gender in empire building. Sara Mills has discussed in Discourses of
Difference some of the constraints that make it difficult for some women travel
writers to be published or read such as accusing women’s writings to be
subjective, inauthentic and autobiographical.60 And given the fact that most
writers who write romance novels are women, there is no doubt that they will
be also exposed, as travel women writers, to the same constraints. Such
exclusion or devaluation of women writers or women in general is succinctly
put as follows:

Women’s travel writing, and in fact women’s writing

about colonial situation as a whole, has been largely ignored,
or has been negatively viewed… there is a tradition of reading
women’s writing as trivial or as marginal to the mainstream,
and this is certainly the attitude to women’s travel writing,
which is portrayed as the records of the travels of eccentric
and rather strange spinsters.61

It is this tendency to consider women’s writings as trivial, inauthentic, and less

authoritative that have contributed to disregard their long tradition as far as
imperial discourse is concerned. Still, it has recently been proven that western
women have really involved in colonial project, playing a crucial role in the
imperial discourse, especially with women travel writers.
In consequence, we can say that both elitism and gender politics are two
main factors, among others, that can explain the undermining of popular

59
More details about this issue of women’s exclusion are going to be discussed in one of the coming
sections, which will be about “the involvement of women in imperial project”.
60
Sara Mills, Discourse of Difference: An analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (New
York: Routledge, 1991) 35.
61
Mills 61.

37
romance writers in postcolonial criticism. In the coming section, an attempt
will be made to display the relevance of this genre to the colonial discourse and
the importance of approaching it from a postcolonial perspective.

2.3 Instancing orientalist/colonial discourse in popular romance

In the previous section, it has been argued that a little attention has been
paid to the study of popular romance from a postcolonial perspective. Elitism,
politics of gender, and the commercial nature of popular romance novels are
some of the main factors that have resulted in downplaying to a large extent
this genre in postcolonial criticism. In an attempt to draw attention to this
genre, this section will try to shed light on how colonialist/orientalist discourse
is instanced into imperial popular romance. Regardless of the literary status of
this genre, it will be argued that it is on the level of popular romance (and
popular culture in general) that colonialist/orientalist ideologies and
stereotypes are revived, prolonged and buttressed.
First and foremost, that imperial popular romance is embedded with
colonial/orientalist ideologies can manifest on the level of the formula of its
plot. In this type of romance, a western blond heroine is kidnapped to or travels
to a non-western space, which is mostly an oriental space, where she meets a
hybrid or a westernised Arab hero, and with whom she madly falls in love. It is
through this cultural and spatial move of the heroine to an oriental space where
orientalist stereotypes and biases are implemented. The heroine is represented
as a western representative, who comes to disclose the ‘primitiveness’ and
‘backwardness’ of the natives, and thus being represented as fulfilling the
‘duty’ of ‘ civilizing’ and ‘modernizing’ those natives. In her relation with the
hero and the natives, the heroine is usually represented as more ‘superior’,
‘sophisticated’ and ‘civilised’ than them. Given such a plot, we can see how
this genre is largely based on old imperial tropes such as “the white man’s
burden”, “civilizing mission” and “modernisation”. The main danger of
imperial popular romance resides in its ability to diffuse its ideologies on a

38
mass level. And it is in fact on this level where imperial romance appears to be
of great influence in terms of ‘orientalising’ and stereotyping the orient.
The emergence of such popular forms of romance prove the fact that
imperial ideologies do not die by the end of empire, but develop and take new
forms. Being fully conscious of this issue, Rana Kabani states that “imperial
ideas did not perish with empire. They serve as much of a manipulative
political function today as they did a hundred years ago.” 62 This is true as far
as imperial romance is concerned since this romance has been capitalizing on a
great deal of old orientalist accounts to construct and reconstruct old imperial
stereotypes. As will be discussed in the practical part of this dissertation, an
attempt will be made to disclose some of those stereotypes as far as gender,
space, and race are concerned. In doing so, it will be elucidated that most of
these stereotypes have been derived from an old western constructed orientalist
register, which has been used to stereotype the orient since antiquity.
Importantly, Rana Kabani can be considered as of one of the main
postcolonial critics who have flagrantly alluded to that growing imperialist
popular literature, in which popular romance is to be included. Rana Kabani
illustrates this idea as follows:

Today, the imperial torch has been passed to a new group

of Orientalists, a great many of them American feminists. It
has become intellectually fashionable for American women
writers – with little or no experience of the Muslim world,
with no knowledge of Muslim history- to spew forth, in books
and articles, on the ‘pathetic’ state of women under Islam.
What is worrying about this growing literature – which is
always popular with a Western readership that can never get
enough about the ‘horrors’ of Islam- is that it re-establishes
the old racial stereotypes at a time when it is quite disastrous
to do so, given an already taut situation between the Muslim
and the west …63

In such a telling quote, there is no doubt that popular romance writers are to be
added to the list of this “new group of Orientalists” who has taken “the burden”

62
Rana Kabbani, “Preface”, Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myth of Orient (London: Pandora, 1994
1986) ix.
63
Kabani ix.

39
of “the imperial torch”. Put differently, popular romance novelists who write
about the orient are mostly from America, “with little or no experience of the
Muslim world, with no knowledge of the Muslim history”, and “re-establishes
the old racial stereotypes”. Therefore, popular romance can be considered as a
means to instance and revive old imperial stereotypes.
In addition, it should be argued that popular romance is a form of colonial
literature par excellence. Colonialist literature, in broad terms, refers to that
literature produced by westerners, male and female, about non-western people.
In this kind of literature, the colonised people are subject to myriad forms of
misrepresentation, deformation and subjugation while the coloniser is
represented as ‘civilised’, ‘modern’, and ‘sophisticated’. Ellek Bohemer makes
distinction between colonial and colonialist literature; the former refers to
writings concerned with colonial perceptions and experiences, written mainly
by metropolitans, but also by the creoles and indigenous, during colonial times,
and thus it comprises both literature written by colonizing as well as colonized
countries.64 The latter, however, is primarily about colonial expansion, and is
instilled with orientalist and colonialist ideologies. This kind of literature is
illustrated as follows:

Literature written by and for colonizing Europeans about

non-European lands dominated by them...colonialist literature
was informed by theories concerning the superiority of
European culture and the rightness of empire. Its distinctive
stereotyped language was geared to mediating the White
man’s relationship with colonized peoples.65

Given this latter definition, one can deduce that colonialist literature is
about the construction of binary oppositions in which the west’s ‘superiority’,
‘civilization’ and ‘whiteness’ are to be contrasted with the ‘East’, ‘inferiority’,
‘backwardness’ and ‘blackness’. Concerning imperial romance, it is found that
it partakes of all those aforementioned characteristics of colonialist literature.
I.e. popular romance enhances such binary oppositions between the orient and

64
Elleke Bohemer, Colonial and Post Colonial Literature (Oxford: oxford university press, 1996) 2.
65
Bohemer 2-3.

40
the occident via representing a western heroine meeting an Arab sheikh from
the orient, falling in love with each other. It is through such meeting that binary
oppositions are constructed between the West and the East. Probably because
of its lack of a certain authority, political or academic, in comparison to other
orientalist genres such as anthropological and ethnographic accounts or travel
literature that imperial romance’s colonialist/orientalist discourses are
dismissed.
Importantly enough, it is probably true that popular romance lacks a
certain political or ‘academic prestige’ as other imperial genres, but it rightly
functions as a medium to enhance and communicate imperial and orientalist
images and ideas. If the orientalist/colonial discourse produced by academic
disciplines and institutions work from without, the one produced by romance
writers can work from within. That is to say, given the large number of readers
of this romance genre, e.g. millions of copies are sold each years of these
romance novels, this genre necessarily enhances and engraves the
orientalist/colonial stereotypes mainly among the masses, pushing them to hold
Eurocentric attitudes towards non-westerners. Therefore, imperial romance
novels should be regarded as performing the same imperial or orientalist
function as any colonial or imperial narrative.

3. Gender, Space, race and popular romance

This section aims at paving the way for the practical part in this research. It
is divided into three sub-sections, and each sub-section will be concerned with
one concept, trying to show the relevance of that concept to popular romance.
The first will elaborate on the concept of gender in terms of showing that
colonialist/orientalist discourse is not only exclusive to men, but also to
women. The second will focus on the concept of space as far as its significance
and function in any colonialist/orientalist discourse. The last sub-section will
try to lay bare some of the orientalist/colonial implications of race, and how
race is used as a pretext for justifying colonialism and exploitation.

41
 3.1 The involvement of ‘western women’ in the imperial project

Given the fact that imperial romance novels are mostly written by western
women, this section undertakes the investigation of western women’s
relevance to the imperial project. It will try to answer some of the following
questions: to what extent western women are engaged in imperial mission?
How do they contribute to the orientalist/colonial discourse? What is the status
of women’s imperial discourse in comparison to men’s one? Do they differ or
serve the same imperial ideology? How do some postcolonial critics regard
women’s imperial discourse? How is western feminism complicit with
imperial discourse? And finally, what is the reaction of postcolonial feminism
to western feminism?
By and large, the role of gender in imperial discourse was ignored for long
time. I.e., imperial project is mostly interpreted as a white male’s burden, to
use Rudyard Kipling’s famous phrase, disregarding any possible role that
women might have played in this project. Regardless of some reservations as
far as Sara Mills’s approach of women’s imperial discourse is concerned66, she
is considered among the first ones to introduce the relevance of gender to
colonial discourse. Arguing that little serious work has been undertaken to
analyse women as agents within the colonial context, Sara Mills claims that
Discourses of Difference is “the first book to set women travellers within the
67
colonial context.” Women, especially in Victorian age, were regarded as
“individuals struggling against the social conventions of the Victorian period,
who were exceptional in managing to escape the system of chaperonage.”68
Such attitudes towards Victorian women contributed to their being excluded
from imperial project, and from being acknowledged as imperial agents.
According to Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, the discourse of femininity,
which regards women as mothers, housewives, passive and emotional, is the
major constraint that contributes to the exclusion of women in areas of life, and

66
This reservation will be explained while discussing some of Sara Mills’ ideas.
67
Sara Mills, Discourse of Difference: An analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and
Colonialism (New York: Routledge, 1991) 2-3.
68
Mills 3.

42
from having access to professional life. This discourse regards women as
lacking an authentic voice, unable to adopt imperial discourse in their writings.
Women’s writings, Sara Mills argues, “are more tentative than male’s
discourse, less able to assert truths of British rule”.69 Thus, given all these
constraints, there has been lack of acknowledgment or consideration of
women’s engagement in the imperial project.
In her book Discourses of Difference, Sara Mills has tried to display how
western women writers have engaged in the imperial project, giving some of
the writings of Alexendra David-Neel, Mary Kingsley, and Mana Mazuchelli
as examples of that engagement. Still, Sara Mills arguments should not be
taken for granted. Her major concern is not to criticise those western women as
far as their colonial discourse is concerned, but to bring into light the role of
western women, and not only men, in the imperial project. Given that she is a
feminist, it is the issue of women, not the colonised people, which concerns her
most in that book. Put differently, she has tried in that book to attack those
patriarchal attitudes which deny women’s abilities to be colonial agents.
Hence, she can not be classified as a postcolonial writer who intends to
disclose and deconstruct colonial ideologies, but might be considered as
engaged in endorsing some colonial ideologies.
Over and above, it is also noticed that with the emergence of postcolonial
criticism, a great deal of attention has been devoted to attack western imperial
male agents, thus ignoring to a large extent the role of western women in the
imperial project. One of the main postcolonial critics who argue for western
women’s engagement in colonial discourse is Elleke Boher saying that
women were not absent from colonial activity, either as
travellers and settlers or as writers, though they have not been
canonized in the same way as male adventure writers. Women
travellers like Mary Kingsly, Florence Dixie, Emily Eden,
Lucie Duff Gordon ... Shared colonialist attitudes (most
obviously, stereotypical responses to indigenous peoples). 70

69
Mills 3.
70
Elleke Bohemer, Colonial and Post Colonial Literature, (Oxford: oxford university press, 1996)
224.

43
 In postcolonial criticism, it is Edward Said who has been the main target
of criticism for his downplaying the issue of gender in his landmark book
Orientalism (1978). Reina Lewis argues that Said’s dealing with women is
limited to the representation of negative images of women or as “the metaphor
for the negative characterisation of the Orientalized Other as ‘feminine’.71 That
is, the woman in Said’s Orientalism is mostly represented as being subject of
desire or as being exploited by the colonizers, but he does not refer to women
as agents of orientalism. Said clearly states this idea as follows:
Orientalism was an exclusively male province; like so many
professional guilds during the modern period, it viewed itself
and its subject matter with sexist blinders. This is especially
evident in the writing of travellers and novelists: women are
usually the creatures of a male power-fantasy. They express
unlimited sensuality, they are more or less stupid, and above
all they are willing.72

In this way, it appears that Said’s concern with women has not to do with their
involvement in orientalism or in producing colonial discourse, since such
things are in Said’s terms part of “male province’. His main concern lies in
depicting the negative image the colonized women were associated with, and
in showing how they were treated by colonizers, giving Flaubert’s Kuchuk
Hanem as an example of the way the colonised women are treated.
Commenting on Said’s exclusion of western women as imperial agents,
Alison Blunt argues that “it is notable that women are perceived as colonized
rather than potential colonizers, and by extension, neglected as readers of
73
imperial literature”. She also adds as far as Said’s book Culture and
Imperialism is concerned that “Said cites women novelists throughout his
account but neglects the significance of constructions of gender for both
74
authorship and imperialism”. That is, though Said attempts in Culture and
Imperialism to give voice to women, he again neglects tackling how these
women have contributed to empire building.

71
Bohemer 18.
72
Edward W. Said. Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) 207.
73
Alison Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa (New York:
Guilford Press, 1994) 27.
74
Blunt 27.

44
 And in her attempt to reform Edward Said’s theory, Rena Lewis calls
for considering the issue of gender, arguing that

attention to women’s writers and artists, therefore, does not

just add but actively reforms Said’s original version: it
disallows a conceptualization of discourse as intentionalist and
unified by highlighting the structural role of sexual as well as
racial difference in the formation of colonial subject
position…it insists on the impact of imperialism on the lives
of women and men ( colonizers and colonized); and, by so
doing, disrupts the masculinism found in accounts and critics
75
of imperialism.

In this quotation, Lewis tries to put high premium on the essential relationship
between gender and imperialism, and calls for paying attention to the status of
women, coloniser and colonised, within imperialism. She also emphasizes the
heterogeneity of the imperial discourse, which is constructed both by
masculine and feminine discourses.
Additionally, and as argued by Alison Blunt, it is undeniable that
imperialism has provided opportunities for some western women to get rid of
those Victorian shackles that limited women’s freedom within their houses.
Alison Blunt maintains that

imperial expansion provided unprecedented opportunities for

white, and at least middle-class, women to travel, with
motives including wifely duty to husbands who were offices
or officials, missionary zeal, the desire for adventure, and
professional, interests such as scientific research.76

In saying this, Alison Blunt stresses the main factors that have allowed
western women to have experience in the orient and to write about it.
Relevantly, by western women’s move to the colonised land their social status
witnesses a kind of change, moving from an inferior status in their societies to

75
Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity, and Representation (London: Routledge,
1996) 20.
76
Blunt Alison, “Mapping Authorship and authority: Reading Mary Kingsley’s Landscape
Descriptions”, Writing Women and Space: Colonial and Post Colonial Geographies, Alison Blunt and
Gillian (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994)52.

45
a superior status in the colonised countries. To elaborate on this point, Cheryl
McEWAN contends that British women, for instance,

…were empowered by the fact that within the empire, status

was determined by race as well as by gender. Notions of
gender were closely linked to notions of race; Africa as a
continent and the African people themselves were commonly
feminized by the literature of empire; women and African
were both “othered”…however, British women often became
“honorary men,” were treated no differently by the Africans
than were British men, and were often referred to as “ Sir.”77

This sense of superiority that western women show in relation to the natives is
clear especially in their writings about the orient. For instance, in imperial
romance novels, it is noticed that with the absence of the western man in the
imperial romance narratives, the western woman, being fully conscious of the
superiority of her race, is represented as being superior both to the Eastern man
and women, with the intention to ‘civilize’ and ‘enlighten’ the natives. In this
sense, it can be argued that the invisibility of western women “becomes visible
at the expanse of colonized women, perpetuating an exclusionary, ethnocentric
discourse”.78 Thus, in comparison to western women, the colonized women
are doubly colonized suffering from both patriarchy and colonialism or, as
Kabani puts it, they are “doubly inferior, being women and Easterners”.79
Interestingly, that unequal relationship between western woman and
Eastern woman does also feature in western feminist discourse in the sense that
western feminism is accused of being entangled of holding imperial and
Eurocentric attitudes towards women of colour. This has broken out a counter-
discourse, launched by postcolonial feminists who have excluded themselves
from western feminism and coined new concepts to distinguish themselves
from western feminism, such as womanism, coined by Alice Walker, or

77
Cheryl McEWAN , “Encounters with West African Women : Textual Representations of Difference
by White Women Abroad” ”, in Alison Blunt and Gillian (Eds). Writing Women and Space: Colonial
and Post Colonial Geographies (New York: The Guilford Press, 1994) 88.
78
Alison Blunt, Travel, Gender and Imperialism: Mary Kingsley and West Africa (New York:
Guilford Press, 1994) 6.
79
Rana Kabbani, Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myth of Orient (London: Pandora, 1986) 51.

46
postcolonial feminism. Here, Elleke Bohemer explains some of the aspects of
marginality and exclusion in western feminist discourse:

up to the late 1970s, feminist analyses of power placed

emphasis on a common experience of oppression, to the extent
that important cultural differences, and differential
experiences of powerlessness, were often ignored. Agency and
rights were, for example, defined from a White American or
European point of view with stress on the individual. An
unfortunate result of that was that stereotypes of the third
world as less liberated, less advanced, or mired in tradition
and superstition, often resurfaced.80

In this respect, among the most important articles which uncover the
contamination or the entanglement of western feminist discourse in the
colonial discourse is Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes:
Feminist Scholarship and colonial discourses”.81 In this article, Mohanty
argues that colonialism has not only to do with economic exploitation, but it
can be used to refer to the production of a particular cultural discourse about
what is called “third world”.82 For instance, the way “third world women” are
conceived of and represented by western feminism as one entity is a form of
colonial discourse. Concerning how western feminist discourse constructs that
difference of third world women, Mohanty assumes that “it is in the
production of this third world difference that western feminisms appropriate
and colonize the constitutive complexities which characterise the lives women
in these countries.”83 In other words, western feminism tends to produce a
reductive discourse which tries to envelop all third world women under one
category.
In terms of this reductive discourse, Mohanty argues that western feminism
tends to produce a hegemonic and monolithic discourse which constructs
‘third world women’ as “a homogeneous powerless group often located as

80
Elleke Bohemer, Colonial and Post Colonial Literature (Oxford: oxford university press, 1996) 225.
81
Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and colonial discourses”,
in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, Eds. Patrick Williams and Laura
Chrisman (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. 1993)196-220.
82
Indebted to : Mohanty 196.
83
Mohanty 198.

47
implicit victims of particular cultural and socioeconomic systems”.84
Significantly enough, in her arguments about the reductive and colonial
discourse produced by western feminist discourse about ‘third world women’,
Mohanty lists some of the main stereotypes or clichés used to refer to all
women in the third world; namely, they are referred to as being victims of
traditions and male violence, being as an identifiable group known by their
shared dependencies and passivity, being victims of the colonial process, the
familial system or patriarchy, being subject to subjugation by some religious
ideologies, and being similar in terms of their needs and problems.85 What is
striking in such representations is the homogenizing view that makes no
difference between the different varieties of women in the ‘third world’.
Women are represented as being in a timeless and stable state in terms that
they do not change and do not develop, which is absolutely wrong. Women in
many countries in the third world are engaged in all different spheres of life
and have proved to be competent and successful both at their homes and
abroad as well. Thus, western women’s representation of women of colour is
no more than a hegemonic and monolithic discourse which is part and parcel of
western imperial discourse.
In the light of what has been said above, one can conclude that there has
been indeed a concrete engagement of some western women in the imperial
project, though such entanglement was for long time ignored. In the practical
part of this research, an attempt will be made to display that sort of
engagement, especially in the case of women writers of popular romance.

3.2 The politics/poetics of space representation

One of the most defining features of imperial popular romance is the

construction of an exotic, alien space in which the western reader is called to
exoticize himself/herself. This space is intended to construct spatial, historical,
and cultural divisions between the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’. In fact, such space
division in these romance novels starts from the very beginning of the story
84
Mohanty 200
85
Mohanty 200-208.

48
when the heroine travels to or is kidnapped to a non-western space. It is in this
very shift from the heroine’s space to the ‘exotic’ space that the representation
of the Other’s space starts taking place. Actually, these are some of the issues
that will be investigated in the second part of this paper. In this section, an
attempt will be made to investigate the very concept of space and how it is
theorized especially in the postcolonial discourse.
Actually, space is amongst those hard concepts to be easily defined
because of the myriad definitions that can be ascribed to it. It can be associated
with place, territory, geography, geometry or to refer to what is cultural,
historical or metaphorical. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin
highlight the interrelation between space/place and language, history and
identity formation. They argue that

the concepts of place and displacement demonstrate the very

complex interaction of language, history and environment in
the experience of colonized peoples and the importance of
space and location in the process of identity formation. In
many cases, ‘place’ does not become an issue in a society’s
cultural discourse until colonial intervention radically disrupts
the primary modes of its representation by separating ‘space’
from ‘place’. A sense of place may be embedded in cultural
history, in legend and language, without becoming a concept
of contention and struggle until the profound discursive
interference of colonialism.86

In the light of this quotation, it appears that both place and space are not
exclusively associated with what is physical, but they can have cultural as well
as historical meanings in the sense that they can constitute one’s history and
culture. Thus, in depicting a certain space, as the case in popular romance,
there is also a depiction of people’s culture and identity. The significance of
one’s space is made clear once it is disrupted or intervened by foreigner in the
sense that it results in dislocation, displacement and alienation.87 Ultimately,
what is important here is that space does not seem, as defined by some critics,

86
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin., Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London:
Routledge, 1999) 177.
87
Ashcroft 177-178.

49
as being dead, fixed, and immobile, but it is lively, meaningful, and expresses
social and cultural meanings, being liable to changeability.88
According to Michel Foucault, space and specialization are being
politically oriented especially since the 18th century.89 That is, space is
rationalized and is subject to the interference of different agents, the fact that
can make people subject to their spaces. This displays a sort of interlink
between space and power. Foucault asserts that “space is fundamental in any
exercise of power”,90 in the sense that to control a certain space requires having
a kind of power, especially knowledge power. Indeed, it is this knowledge
power that actually enabled the colonizer to know the colonized space, and
thus to dominate it. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin assume
that

the most formidable ally of economic and political control

had long been the business of ‘knowing’ other peoples
because this ‘knowing’ underpinned imperial dominance and
became the mode by which they were increasingly persuaded
to know themselves.91

Hence, knowing the ‘Other’ means primarily knowing and studying the
‘Other’s’ space, be it the geographical, the cultural or the social space. Such
study is not necessarily based on real experiences, but it is mostly based on
imaginative tropes which try to frame the ‘Other’ in a certain frame of thought.
In colonial discourse, imagining or inventing the ‘Other’ is one of the
efficient means to control and know the ‘other’. This ‘Other’, be it people,
culture or space, is imagined and depicted in the way which defines the ‘I’ as
being superior to the ‘Other’, or as its contrasting image, idea, personality,
experience.92

88
Indebted to :Edward Soja, “History: Geography: Modernity’ The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon
During, (London: Routledge, 1993) 136.
89
Michel Foucault, Space, Power and Knowledge, The Cultural StudiesReader, ed. Simon During,
(London: Routledge, 1993).
90
Foucault 168.
91
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, eds, The post Colonial Studies Reader, (New York:
Routledge, 1995) 1.
92
Indebted to : Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) 1-2.

50
 Most significantly, Edward Said elaborates more on those politics of space
imagination or “imaginative geography”, as he refers to it in the first chapter of
his book Orientalism (1978). He argues that “Orientalism is a field with
considerable geographical ambition”93 in the sense that the project of
orientalism has been mainly concerned with the configuration of the oriental
geography or space; which can explain the large studies and travels made by
westerners to the orient for the sake of enlarging their knowledge about the
orient.
As highlighted by Said, the problem with these travellers or orientalists is
their lack of any intention to really discover the real orient as it is in reality, but
they come with intention to prove the validity of those images they had about
the orient, and to show the world the essential disparity between Western
‘civilization’ and Eastern ‘non-civilization’. And what is more at stake is that
this knowledge they come with is a kind of ‘ second order knowledge” based
on the “oriental” tale, the mythology of the mysterious East, or what V.G.
Kiernan called “Europe’s collective day dream”.94
Therefore, the relationship between the West and East is primarily based on
an imaginary classification that tends to associate, in an arbitrary way, certain
attributes with a certain place. On the premise that things in history and history
itself are man-made, Said assumes that objects or places can be assigned roles
and meanings “which acquire objective validity only after the assignments are
made”. This represents a sort of fictionalisation of places in the sense that
places or objects have existence only in the mind, but not in reality.95 Such
fictionalisation and arbitrariness of apace designation are clarified by Said as
follows:

This universal practice of designating in one’s mind a familiar

space which is “ours” and unfamiliar space beyond “ours”
which is “theirs” is a way of making geographical distinctions
that can be entirely arbitrary. I use the word “arbitrary” here
because imaginative geography of the “our land-barbarian

93
Indebted to: Said 50.
94
Indebted to: Said 52.
95
Indebted to: Said 54.

51
 land” variety does not require that the barbarians acknowledge
the distinction, it is enough for “us” to set up these boundaries
in our minds; “they” become they” accordingly, and both their
territory and their mentality are designated as different from
“ours”.96

In saying this, Said makes it clear that “imaginative geography” is a form of

arbitrary thinking which sets differences in the mind between the ‘I’ and the
‘Other’; and such differences, which are primarily geographical, create a sort
of distance on the cultural, social, and moral levels between the two poles.
Indeed, the division of the world into the occident and orient is meant as a form
of geographical division that identifies one as ‘superior’ and ‘developed’ while
the ‘Other’ as ‘inferior’ and ‘underdeveloped’.
In order to reveal how space can be fictionalized or assigned different
poetic meanings which might differ from one to another or from time to time,
Said cites a good example given by Gaston Bachelard about poetics of space.
Following Gaston Bachelard, Said explains that
the inside of a house acquire a sense of intimacy,
secrecy, security, real or imagined, because of the
experiences that come to seem appropriate for it. The
objective space of a house - its corners, corridors,
cellar, rooms - is far less important than what poetically it is
endowed with, which is usually a quality with an
imaginative or figurative value we can name and feel:
thus a house may be haunted, or homelike, or prison like, or
magical. So space acquires emotional and even rational
sense by a kind of poetic process, whereby the vacant
or anonymous reaches of distance are converted into
meaning for us here. 97

Given this example of the poetics of a house, one can conclude that space
means what one makes of it. One place with the same objects can signify
different opposing meanings, depending on how this place is conceived of by
each one. In sum, by referring to imaginative geography and poetics of space,
Said, in fact, tries to falsify the myth of the ‘oriental space’, which is primarily
orientalized on the basis of certain myths and false conceptions of it. Such

96
Said 54.
97
Said 54-55.

52
misconceptions of space also result in misconceiving the culture, history, and
people of that space.
Apparently, Said’s above argument delineates how colonial discourse tries
via imaginative geography to construct binary oppositions between the ‘I’ and
the ‘Other’. Said’s focus on such binary oppositions between the West and the
East is criticized by many critics, especially by Homi Bhabha, who prefers to
focus on notions of ambivalence and third space, instead of binary oppositions.
Criticizing Said’s adherence to binary oppositions, Homi Bhabha contends that

where the originality of this account loses its inventiveness,

and for me its usefulness, it is with Said’s refusal to engage
with the alterity and ambivalence in the articulation of these
two economies which threaten to split the very object of
orientalist discourse as a knowledge and the subject positioned
therein.98

As an alternative of Said’s binary paradigm, Homi Bhabha argues for

ambivalent, hybrid spaces or what he calls in “The Commitment to Theory”
”third space”, a space of negotiation and translation.99 In this third space, “the
meaning of symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the
same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew.”100
In saying this, Bhabha calls for destabilizing any form of binary oppositions
since there are no fixed identities, but ongoing hybrid and ambivalent ones.
In effect, such destabilization of binary oppositions is clarified by Mary
Louise Pratt’s concept of transculturation by which she means the process of
intercultural negotiation, appropriation, and adaptation.101 This process is a
phenomenon of the contact zone, which refers to “social spaces where
disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly
asymmetrical relation of domination and subordination”.102 And this space

98
Homi Bhabha, “Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism”, The politics of
theory: Proceedings of the Essex Conference on the Sociology of Literature, ed. Francis Baker
(Michigan: University of Essex, 1983), 199-200.
99
Homi Bhabha, “The commitment to Theory”, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
100
Bhabha 37.
101
Indebted to: Marry Louis Pratt, “Introduction: Criticism in the Contact Zone”, Imperial Eyes:
Travel Writing, and Transculturation, (London: Routledge, 1992) 6.
102
Pratt 4.

53
also is used to refer to “the space of colonial encounters, the space in which
peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each
other and establish ongoing relations”.103 Actually, the importance of “contact
zone” resides in its tendency to nullify those rigid binary oppositions between
the colonizer and the colonized, giving rise to what Bhabha calls “hybridity”
and “third space”.
In the light of all that has been said above, it is noticed that space
representation is liable to different interpretations, especially in post colonial
discourse. Space can signify constructed imaginary oppositions, be they
geographical or cultural, between the “I” and the “other”, as well as it can
signify a blurring space, where no binary positions are possible, but
transcultural and hybrid ones.

3.3 The trope of race in colonial discourse

The colonial/orientalist discourse without the presence of the trope of race is

unthinkable. And an “imperial romance novel” without raising the issue of race
is also unthinkable. It is due to the centrality of race in popular romances that
this section will try to shed light on how race is used as trope in the
construction of colonialist/racist discourse. Indeed, one of the main
technologies of the colonial discourse is the fabrication of racial hierarchies
through which one race is assumed to be superior to others. In this racial
hierarchy, it has been always the ‘western white race’ which is classified on the
top list of races, and the black one at the bottom. And as argued by Bill
Ashcroft, race emerged as a way of establishing hierarchical divisions between
Europe and its “Others”.104
By and large, the concept of race has been subject to criticism to the extent
that some would deny the existence of something called race. Even those who
have tried to define it show about their caution and reservation about it. For
instance, Ashcroft defines race as following:

103
Pratt. 6
104
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin., Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London:
Routledge, 1999) 80.

54
 A term for the classification of human beings into
physically, biologically and geographically groups. The
notion of race assumes, firstly, that humanity is divided
into unchanging natural types, recognizable by physical
features that are transmitted ‘through blood’ and permit
distinctions to be made between ‘pure’ and ‘mixed’
races’. Furthermore, the term implies that the mental and
moral behavior of human beings, as well as individual
personality, ideas and capacities, can be related to racial
origin, and that knowledge of that origin provides
105
satisfactory account of the behavior.

In this definition, it is obvious that Ashcroft keeps using verbs such as

“assume” and “imply” so as to stress on the dubiousness of the concept and
their reservations about it. Put differently, what is claimed to be a kind of
classification of human beings in races is arbitrary since such divisions, which
are most of the time based on physical appearances, are believed to be
directly related to intellectual and mental capacities of races. The consensus of
the intellectual opinion today, both in humanities and the sciences, announces
that race is an inherently uncertain concept because its boundaries are
notoriously unreliable, and its identity categories such as white, black and
brown, are essentially incoherent to the extent that many variations are to be
found in one so-called race than among different races.106 This is meant to
refute any claim of racial differences as a basis for intellectual or mental
differences between races.
Importantly, what is at stake with this notion of race is that it is usually
accompanied with racism and racial prejudice in the sense that each race tries
to prove to be the best than the other. In an attempt to clarify this interlink
between race and racism, Kwame Anthony Appiah has made distinction
between racialism, extrinsic racism, and intrinsic racism, as being three distinct

105
Ashcroft 198.
106
Apollo Amoko, “ Race and Postcoloniality”, The Routledge Companion to Critical Theory, eds,
Simon Malpo and Paul Wake, (London; Routledge: 2006) 130.

55
doctrines that express the theoretical content of race and racism.107 He defines
racialism as the belief

that there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members

of our species, that allow us to divide them into a small set of
races, in such a way that all members of these races share
certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not
108
share with members of any other race.

Such distinctions between races, Appiah argues, are harmless as long as they
are “impartial” and “equitable” in terms of avoiding any assignment of moral
or intellectual characteristics with a certain race. Another less extreme doctrine
of racism is what Appiah called extrinsic racism, which means that extrinsic
racists tend to “make moral distinctions between members of different races
because they believe that racial essence entails certain morally relevant
qualities”.109 This kind of discrimination is based on associating between what
is essential in a certain race such as skin color and some of their virtues like
civilization, intelligence, and courage. For Appiah, such type of racism can be
refuted as long as one proves that racial differences do not equate with moral
differences. To elaborate on this point, Appiah argues that:

Evidence that there are no such differences in morally relevant

characteristics- that Negroes are not especially lacking in
intellectual capacity or that Jews are not especially avaricious-
should lead people out of their racism if it is purely
extrinsic.110

The last extreme doctrine of racism is the intrinsic one, which is usually found
embedded in the colonialist/racist discourse. Appiah argues that intrinsic
racists refer to those people who “believe that each race has a different moral
status, quite independent of the moral characteristics entailed by its racial
essence”.111 Unlike extrinsic racism, intrinsic racism cannot be verified since it

107
Henceforth all the coming arguments of Appiah are cited in: Apollo Amoko, “ Race and
Postcoloniality”, The Routledge Companion to Critical Theory, eds, Simon Malpo and Paul Wake,
(London; Routledge: 2006) 127-139.
108
Amoko 130.
109
Amoko 130.
110
Amoko 131.
111
Amoko 131.

56
starts from the essential belief that each race is naturally entitled to behave or
act in a certain way. In fact, it is this last doctrine of racism which is found to
be the common one in the colonial discourse. I.e., the colonizer tries in
different ways, especially in ‘scientific terms’, to prove the “superiority’of the
white race and the ‘inferiority’ of the non-white race so that they can legitimize
colonization.
Importantly, racial thinking and classification was of great help in
westerner’s colonial expansion and domination of the natives. It is through
classifying races into civilized ones and primitive ones that the west was able
to give legitimacy to its “civilizing missionary”, through which the colonized
people were subjugated. The invention of scientific and social theories also
contributed to dehumanizing and primitivising some races. For illustration,
Social Darwinism, based on law of Natural Selection, justified “the domination
and at times the extinction of inferior races as not only inevitable but a
desirable unfolding of natural law”.112 And for Darwin the world races exist
side by side, being in different stages, where the “European civilized race” is
claimed to be in the highest point of these stages; thus it is the European race
which is defined as the fittest of all humanity, and the one which can rule and
civilize other races.113 Such pseudo-scientific theories are unfortunately used
by western colonizer as pretexts to justify colonization and exploitation of the
natives.
And as argued by Ellke Bohemer, another extreme process of figuring the
other races was the European symbolic complex called the “Great Chain of
Being”. In this chain, the highest forms of life, which are located in Europe, are
to be connected with the lowest forms of life, depending on their difference
from Europeans.114 Such classification is not only used to explain the
biological variety, “but the superiority or inferiority of different cultural types

112
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin., Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London:
Routledge, 1999) 201.
113
David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discousre in Journalism, Travel Writing and
imperial Administration, (United States of America: Duke University press) 63.
114
Elleke Bohemer, Colonial and Post Colonial Literature,( Oxford: oxford university press, 1996) 84.

57
ranged on a scale of evolutionary progress”.115 In saying this, it should be
argued that the main danger of western myth of racial differences resides in
connecting between the physical differences between races and the cultural,
civilizational and mental differences between them, thus claiming that one race
is inherently civilized or intelligent.
It should be argued that such systems of classification are mainly racist in
the sense that they are based on the premise of debasing and dehumanizing
other races. And as argued above, it is highly difficult to define what is race,
and, therefore, any racial classification is arbitrary and is mainly oriented by
certain ideology. Therefore, the Europeans’ attempts to defend those racial
classifications stem from their ethnocentric and Eurocentric assumptions, and it
has been proved that all their invented scientific theories which try to justify
those classifications are erroneous and contradictory.116
In effect, the construction of such racial differences is basically related to
the construction of civilizational, cultural, and social differences between
races. And of great significance is that such racial classification, though they
are imaginary and socially constructed, can have deep impact on individuals
who are subject to racial discrimination. The two polemical works of Frantz
Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks117 and The Wretched of the Earth 118 do really
expose the impact of colonization and mainly the racist discourse of the
colonizers against the colonized.
Actually, it is in Black Skins, White Masks, where Fanon really highlights
the great impact of western racist discourse on the black’s perception of
themselves. Such racist discourses, Fanon argues, results in having complexes
of dependency and inferiority within the black communities, to the extent that
the black is no longer wants to identify with his/her color, but with the white

115
Bohemer 84.
116
Ania Loomba, for example provided three main reasons to refute the western “pseudo-scientific
theories” of racial classification, for more details see: Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialsim,
(London: Routledge, 1998) 115-123.
117
Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks, Trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove Press,
1967).
118
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Trans. Constance Farrington (Great Britain: Penguin
Books, 1967).

58
one, thinking that the latter as being the role model color.119 Therefore, as
Frantz Fanon clearly announces it, one of his major purposes is to “help the
black man to free himself of the arsenal of complexes that has been developed
by the colonial environment”120, since such racial discriminations and
classifications are chiefly social and cultural constructs. Thus in enabling the
colonized people to understand this idea, Fanon believes that they can get rid
of their complex of inferiority, and will be proud to be themselves and not
somebody else. In sum, racial classification is to be seen as a western myth
buttressed by pseudo-scientific theories in order to prove the superiority of
western race, culture, and civilization over the ones of non-western races so as
to give legitimacy to western colonization and exploitation practices. Thus, any
classification based on race is dubious and erroneous.

119
Such issues are discussed in detail in Fanon’s Black Skins, White Masks especially in the following
chapters: “The Woman of Colour and the White Women”, “The Man of Colour And The White
Women”, and in “The Fact of Blackness”: Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks, Trans. Charles
Lam Markmann (New York: Grove Press, 1967).
120
Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks, Trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove Press,
1967) 30.

59
Conclusion:

Throughout the above three sections, an attempt has been made to

foreground for the practical part, which is going to be a postcolonial reading of
three popular romance novels in terms of their representation of gender, space
and race. The first section describes how the emergence of cultural studies has
interrupted “elitist” definitions of culture and literature, giving rise to the study
of all different literary/cultural forms, high or low, within academic spheres.
Then, it has been displayed how some popular culture forms are engaged in
orientalism, presenting Edward Said and Jack Shaheen’s works as instances
which expose that engagement. Still, given popular romance is part and parcel
of popular cultures, the question which is raised is why popular romance is
downplayed in postcolonial studies despite its being replete with
colonialist/orientalist ideologies. It comes into view that ‘elitism’, gender, and
popular nature of popular romance are amongst the main factors that have
contributed to the exclusion of popular romance from postcolonial studies.
Finally, in relation to the practical part, an effort has been made to discuss
gender, space, and race from a postcolonial perspective. Throughout gender, it
has been displayed how some ‘western women’ are engaged in the imperial
project through their writings and travels to the orient. In terms of space, focus
has been addressed to discuss how space can be capitalized on to create
“imaginative geography” between the “I” and the “other”. It is also explained
that space can function as a means to control, stereotype and primitivise the
“other”. Finally, the issue of ‘race’ has been raised to reveal about the pseudo-
scientific nature of westerners’ claims about racial differences. It has been
argued that race is a man-made myth through which one race, which is mostly
the western race, claims “superiority”, “civilization”, and “modernity”. It is
through such claims that westerners announce themselves as agents to
‘modernize’, ‘civilize’ and ‘enlighten’other inferior races. Henceforth, gender,
space and race will be delved into in terms how they are represented in Never
Marry in Morocco, The Veiled Web and Lord of the Desert, attempting to show
some colonialist/orientalist drives behind those representations.

60
Part two: A Postcolonial reading of: Never Marry in Morocco,
The Veiled Web, and Lord of the Desert

Introduction:

It is unarguably true that Said’s landmark book Orientalism is mostly the

first book to set forth a critical reading and analysis of the orientalist and
colonial discourses in western imperial narratives, paving the way, thus, for the
emergence of postcolonial studies and criticism. In this book, Said describes
how the west, through knowledge/power, was able to dominate the Orient. Said
capitalizes on both Foucault’s concept of “discourse” and Antonio Gramsci’s
concept of “hegemony” to display some mechanics and dimensions of the
orientalist/colonial discourse. Of great importance is the notion of discourse
since, as said explains,

without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot

possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by
which European culture was able to manage ─ and even
produce─ the orient politically, sociologically, militarily,
ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-
Enlightenment period.121

Thus, it is in the light of Said’s understanding of colonial/orientalist discourse

that this second part is going to analyze the following three imperial romance
popular novels: Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco, Catherine Assaro’s
The Veiled Web, and Diana Palmer’s Lord of the Desert.
Colonial discourse and orientalist discourse are going to be used as being
complementary in the sense that one can not be separated from the other.
Colonial discourse is assumed to be more inclusive than the orientalist
discourse, being defined as “the system of statements that can be made about
the colonies and colonial peoples, about colonizing powers and about the

121
Edward W. Said. Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) 3.

61
relationships between these two”.122 In this sense, Orientalist discourse is to be
conceived of as part of the colonial discourse in terms that Orientalism in
general is meant to pave the way and give legitimacy for the colonial
discourse. I.e. the orientalist’s studies and writings are mostly of great help for
the colonial enterprise. Therefore, orientalist discourse should be considered in
terms of complementing and buttressing the colonial discourse.
Accordingly, This part is going to be a postcolonial reading of the above
three romance novels, trying to detect how the colonial/orientalist discourse is
materialized in terms of the (mis)representation of space, race, and gender in
those novels. Undertaking investigation on these three concepts is not meant to
claim covering all issues and concepts in those romance novels, but they are
used simply as instances to account for the colonial/orientalist discourse in
popular romance.
In this respect, this part is split into three major sections, and throughout
each section one concept will be delved into, trying to investigate how it is
represented in those novels. In the first section, focus will be addressed to
analyze how gender is constructed in the three novels, trying to display how
native or rather Arab Muslim women are represented under “western female
gaze”. Questions of patriarchy, harem, veil and construction of signs of
difference between western woman and native woman will be subject to
analysis in this section. The second section is concerned with examining how
oriental space is mis/represented, stereotyped, imagined and surveyed
throughout the three case studies. Finally, the last section tackles how race is
used as a premise on which the west articulates its superiority and the
inferiority of non-westerners.

122
Bill Ashcroft and Pal Ahluwalia, Edward Said, (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 62.
As far as the use of colonial discourse and orientalist discourse is concerned, it is noticed that many
critics sometimes use them interchangeably and sometimes else as being different. But according to
John Macleod, “Orientalism [or orientalist discourse] and colonial discourse do not amount to the
same thing; they are not interchangeable. Colonial discourses are more complex and variable than
Said’s model of orientalsm; they encapsulate Orientalsim, to be sure, but go beyond it.” See: John
McLeod, Beginning postcolonialism, (New York: Manchester University Press, 200), 39.

62
1. Gender and the representation of ‘native women’

The question of gender in popular romance is of paramount importance

given that it is identified as one of the main defining features of popular
romance genre, especially with the emergence of feminist movements in sixties
and seventies. How gender roles are constructed in popular romance has been
one of the main issues tackled by feminists. Still, with our focus on imperial
popular romance, in which cross-cultural issues are raised, our attention in this
section will be devoted chiefly to the investigation of how popular romance
constructs and represents western women versus non-western woman, trying to
trace some aspects of orientalist/colonial discourse in these representations.
In this respect, given the fact that the main novels that are subject to
analysis in this research are dealing with the representation of Arab Muslim
women, our analysis will focus on how these women are portrayed in the eyes
of western female writers. The question of Islam will be of great account in
order to understand the politics of such representations. Islam has in fact been
for so long time subject to western criticism in terms that Islamic practices, e.g.
veil, have usually been associated with the oppression of women.123 Muslim
women who stick to their religion are described as ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’,
and in need to be emancipated and modernized. The western model of women
is represented as the role model to be universalized. For instance, from a very
Eurocentric vantage point, Juliet Minces argues as following:

Can the evolution of the condition of women in the Arab

world be evaluated by the same criteria as in the west? Is it
not Eurocentric to put forward the lives of western women
as the only democratic, just and forward-looking model? I
do not think so. The demands of western feminists seem to
me to represent the greatest advance towards the
emancipation of women as people. Ideally, the criteria
adopted, like those for human rights generally should be
universalized.124
123
MeyDa YEGENOGLU, “Saratorical Fabricatios: Enlightenment and western feminism”, in
Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse, Ed. Laura E. Donaldson & Kwok Pui-lan (New
York: Routledge, 2002)84.
124
Quoted in MeyDa YEGENOGLU, “Saratorical Fabricatios: Enlightenment and western feminism”,
in Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse, Ed. Laura E. Donaldson & Kwok Pui-lan
(New York: Routledge, 2002) 86.

63
 This discourse discloses the hegemony and Eurocentrism of western
feminist discourse which, as Meyda Yegenoglu has pointed out, believes in the
necessity of Muslim women’s breaking out from their tradition and religion for
the sake of “modernisation”.125 For them, this modernisation is only possible
by following the western paradigm in all its aspects, the fact which is
principally Eurocentric and essentialist. And this is why most third world
feminists and Islamic feminists have rejected to be subsumed within the above
western paradigm. For instance, Islamic feminists are trying to stick to their
religion and to their tradition, rejecting to be subject to any western hegemonic
power. Mariam Cooke provides here some of their principles and beliefs:

They are refusing the boundaries others try to draw around

them. They are claiming that Islam is not necessarily more
traditional or authentic than any other identification nor is it
any more violent or patriarchal than any other religion. They
are claiming to be strong within this tradition, to act as
feminist without fear, so that they may be labelled western and
imitative. They are highlighting women’s roles and status
within their religious communities while at the same time
declaring common cause with Muslim women elsewhere who
share the same cause.126

Such principles of these Islamic feminists are meant to refute western

imperial and Eurocentric discourses, and also to stress on one’s right to be
different and to stick to one’s culture and tradition. Indeed, for each one his/her
culture and principles and no one has the right to negate the other for the sake
of imposing one’s model.

1.1 ‘Muslim women’ under western female gaze

In this section, we shall try to detect how Muslim women are

represented in the three romance novels under question. In fact, there are many
125
MeyDa YEGENOGLU, “Saratorical Fabricatios: Enlightenment and western feminism”, in
Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse, Ed. Laura E. Donaldson & Kwok Pui-lan (New
York: Routledge, 2002) 84.
126
Miriam Cooke “Multiple critique: Islamic Feminist Rhetorical strategies”, in Postcolonialism,
Feminism and Religious Discourse. Ed. Laura E. Donaldson & Kwok Pui-lan (New York: Routledge,
2002) 145.

64
similarities among these three novels in terms of the representation of Muslim
women. Most of them represent Muslim women as subject to ‘oppression’ of
their religion and their cultural milieu. To avoid repetition, each of the three
coming sub-sections will try to tackle a specific issue in each novel. Patriarchy
and the ‘oppression’ of women will be discussed in Virginia Dale’s Never
Marry in Morocco; ‘harem’ representation in Diana Palmer’s Lord of the
Desert; and finally the trope of ‘veil’ in Catherine Assaro’s The Veiled Web. 127

1.1.1 Never Marry in Morocco: Patriarchy and the ‘oppression’ of

women

Before moving to discuss how Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco

represents Morocco as a ‘patriarchal society’ in which women are subject to
male ‘oppression’, it should be argued that Virginia Dale as well as many other
western writers take it for granted that patriarchy is exclusive to ‘third world
countries’, though such a phenomenon is indeed a global one. In addition to
that, Muslim women, in particular, have been for so long time the main target
of western criticism which usually associates the oppression of women with
Islam, considering the latter as a means to ‘oppress’, ‘seclude’ and ‘objectify’
them.128
Importantly, Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco in fact
exemplifies an instance of those western discourses which ascribe the
oppression of women in the Arab world to Islam. In fact, such tendency to
associate Islam with the oppression of women can reveal about one’s
ignorance of what Islam has meant for women, and how it has contributed to
keep the status of women intact. Where Judaism permitted “polygamy,
concubinage, and unrestricted divorce for men and did not allow women to
inherit or to play a role in religion, to mention only some salient features”, and

127
Henceforth, when a novel is quoted, it will be referred to in an abbreviated form : Never Marry in
Morocco will be referred to as (N.M.M.), The Veiled Web as (V.W.), and Lord of the Desert
as (L.D.).
128
For more details on this point, see Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical roots of a
Modern Debate (London: Yale University Press, 1992) 144-168.

65
“some of these mores were accepted by Christianity”,129 Islam has affirmed
“women’s rights to inherit and control property and income without reference
to male guardians, in that it constitutes a recognition of women’s rights to
economic independence”130, and that it “was Islam and not, as Europeans
claimed, the west, that first recognized an equal humanity of women.”131. This
shows how Islam differs from other religions in terms of respect and value
devoted to women in Islam. Still, western discourses insist on deconstructing
the image of Islam through representing it as a religion of violence and
oppression.
In this respect, Never Marry in Morocco exemplifies an instance of such
western biased discourses towards Islam and Muslims. That the novel is a
biased one is made clear from the onset in terms of its “attracting” and at the
same time troubling title. Never Marry in Morocco, as a title, expresses a
strong negative and authoritative judgment about Morocco as a whole. It does
not allow space of contention; rather it states a final and clear-cut sentence
which condemns a whole large people. It warns any reader against thinking to
get married in Morocco. By so doing, such title distorts the image of Morocco
in the eyes of foreigners who do not know about it anything, reducing Morocco
into a timeless negative image. That is, any one who reads that title can get a
negative impression about Morocco.
In the light of the novel’s events, the narrator tries to substantiate and
buttress the judgment made in the title about Morocco, by means of presenting
some instances of how women in Morocco are oppressed. As will be explained
below, ‘never marry in Morocco’ message is addressed primarily to westerners
who want to visit Morocco, in an attempt to warn them of not thinking to get
married there. The main reason behind stating such warning is due to the fact
that Morocco is ruled by ‘Islamic law’ which gives ‘supremacy’ to men over
women. Therefore, it appears that the question of marriage has not to do with
Morocco alone, but mainly with Islam and all Muslim countries. Thus,

129
Indebted to: Ahmed 34.
130
------- : Ahmed 63.
131
------- : Ahmed 139.

66
Morocco as a Muslim country is presented simply as a microcosm for the
whole Muslim nations.
For more illustration of these issues, it would be necessary to put the
novel’s events in context. Never Marry in Morocco by and large revolves
around the story of Virginia, the heroine and narrator, who leaves United States
for the sake of adventure and romance. She meets a French-Moroccan guy,
Pierre, in Spain, with whom she gets married. And since Pierre’s family is
living in Morocco, the place where he has been born, the two go regularly to
Morocco in order to visit Pierre’s family. It is there in Morocco where Virginia
comes across with the Moroccans and their culture. In such an encounter, the
writer communicates via the experience of Virginia there many stereotypes on
Morocco. The most striking stereotypes about Morocco and Islam are
conveyed in the following conversation between Virginia and her mother-in-
law, Jean Paul:

“Virginia” she continued, “I must warn you.”

I looked politely into her eyes, now serious with discretion.
“People outside of Muslim countries do not know their
culture. So I must tell you. They still buy their brides here.
There is a bride price established, and the groom must give
that to the bride’s family. If she wants a divorce, she cannot
keep her own children. The men have all the rights.”
“What happens to a divorced woman?” Now I was
concerned.
“She must go back to her family and her family must
give the husband back everything he paid for her: sheep,
camels, gold and silver jewelry, everything.”
We looked at each other somberly for a moment. The
idea of women being bought and sold stunned me into silence.
My mother-in-law put her hand on my arm and
whispered into my ear, “Never marry in morocco, Virginia.”
(N.M.M. p. 69)

In examining this passage, the writer tries to dramatize how women are
being ‘victimized’ and ‘oppressed’ in Islam, representing the latter as a means
to empower men over women. Describing women as “being bought and sold”
is meant to objectify and commodify Moroccan women. In saying this, narrator
condemns Islam as being a religion which enhances the ‘oppression’ and

67
‘subjugation’ of women, which is not true. Dowry in Islam is a sacred practice
which is meant to pay respect for the wife; it also signifies the real will or the
serious intention of the husband to engage in marriage in order to establish a
family. So, the importance of what is paid as a dowry lies less in its financial
value than in its symbolic connotation. In fact, such misunderstanding or
distortion of some Islamic practices is not something new since it can not be
denied that Islam has been for a long time a target to western criticism and
distortion. This point is made clear by Leila Ahmed, arguing that

the practices of Islam with respect to women had always

formed part of the western narrative of the quintessential
otherness and inferiority of Islam […] it may be said that
prior to the seventeenth century Western ideas about Islam
derived from the tales of travelers and crusaders, augmented
by the deductions of clerics from their readings of poorly
understood Arabic.132

In addition, the fact that Virginia is warned by her mother-in-law not to get
married in Morocco makes her abstain from having children with Pierre in
Morocco. She says:

After five years of marriage, Pierre and I still had no children

[…] because there was that rumor that if you had children in
Morocco, they would belong only to your husband if you
divorced. (N.M.M. p.15)

In such a tone of describing her reason why she decides not to have children
with Pierre, Virginia articulates and enhances the ‘victimization’ of women in
Morocco. Regardless of the fact that such an attitude is biased and based on a
kind of misunderstanding of how Islam treats women, the narrator also tries to
draw a negative image about Morocco by means of representing it as an
oppressing society of women. Likewise, the narrator tries to stress the fact that
Morocco is a patriarchal society par excellence, where men have all rights to
take children from their wives, and to divorce women easily whenever they

132
Ahmed 149.

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want. As far as divorce is concerned, Virginia, in an attempt to represent Islam
as an ‘oppressive’ religion, says:

Indeed, divorce was very informal in this country. All a

man had to do was clap his hands in his three times, saying “I
repudiate thee” each time. Then the wife was put out on the
street with a basket of belongings to return to family. And the
husband often requested her bride price, whether he had paid
it to her in actual money or in sheep or other presents. “A
woman should never marry into such a religion,” I thought
sadly. (N.M.M. p.162)

In examining such a hateful passage, Islam is diametrically misrepresented in

terms of presenting it as an ‘unjust’ religion for women. Islam is represented as
a male religion which serves only men’s interest. Yet, has in fact there been any
fair religion to women, it is Islam. Islam, unlike what Virginia says, gives
Muslim women all rights within wedlock and outside it. Divorce, for instance,
is very restricted or discouraged in Islam, and takes place only after hope is lost
that a couple will continue together.133 To add, like men, woman in Islam have
the right to ask for divorce if she finds it unbearable to live with her husband.134
Hence, Virginia’s above discourse can be described as stemming out either
from her ‘ignorance’ about Islam, or her hatred to it. But it is highly possible to
include her among that new group of American women, described by Rana
Kabani as follows:

It has become intellectually fashionable for American women

writers – with little or no experience of the Muslim world,
with no knowledge of Muslim history- to spew forth, in books

133
Here are some verses and hadiths which discourage divorce in Islam, and asks for well
treatment of women : Allah says : ‘And (remember)when you (Muhammed) said to the man
(Zayd, Muhammed’s adopted son) whom Allah and yourself have favoured: keep your wife
and have fear of Allah’ , He also says ‘Treat them with kindness; for even if you do dislike
them, it may well be that you may dislike a thing which Allah has meant foryour own good’,
and the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) says : ‘Of all things licit, the most hateful to God is
divorce.’ And in another hadith he says: ‘Let not the faithful man hate the faithful woman; if
he dislikes some of her habits, he may like others.’ All these verses and hadiths are cited in:
Haifaa A. Jawad The Rights of Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach (London: Macmillan
Press Ltd 1998), p.84.
134
For more details about women’s rights in Islam, see, for instance: Haifaa A. Jawad The Rights of
Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach (London: Macmillan Press Ltd 1998).

69
 and articles, on the ‘pathetic’ state of women under Islam …
This literature also builds on some dubious foundations: that
the western women have it all, and Muslim women have
nothing. That the Muslim women to earn status and respect
from the western feminism, they must denature themselves by
throwing off their religious culture in its entirety. 135

Importantly, in her efforts to more concretize and dramatize the sufferance

of Moroccan women in their society, the writer presents the experience of
Amina and her mother, as being victims of their society and their religion.
Telling us about the background of Amina, Virginia says that Amina is

the daughter of the youngest wife of a wealthy Sultan’s harem

in the south of Morocco, near Marrakech. Her mother had
been too young to know how to fight for her share of the
inheritance when the rich old man died, and she and Amina
had only a small grocery store to support them. (N.M.M
p.157)

In the light of this passage, the very use of the word ‘harem’ is meant to revive
the old western myth of ‘harem’. This myth alone makes the western readers
indulge in the ‘oriental’ ‘fantasy’ and ‘exoticism’, reminding them of how
women in orient are being ‘secluded’ and ‘oppressed’. Such oppression is
represented by giving the example of Amina’s mother who has been unable to
get her inheritance. The use of the word “fight for” is so revealing that it
implies that there is no law that governs inheritance or protects women’s rights
of inheritance in a Muslim society. This image entails that such societies are
ruled by anarchy, where the powerful subordinates the weak. By so doing,
these societies are represented as being still living in a very ‘primitive age’,
and they are in need to be ‘modernized’, and ‘civilized’. But, has Virginia
known that Islam is the first religion to give full humanity to women, and to
allow them to inherit, she would not have said that.
In addition to the above experience of Amina’s mother, Amina is also
represented as another victim of her husbands’ oppression. She is represented
as being divorced by her husband for the sake of another woman. He has left

135
Rana Kabbani. Preface. Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myth of Orient (London: Pandora, 1994) ix.

70
her with their son, giving them nothing to live with. Such representations are
in fact meant to emphasize the on-going process of women’s ‘sufferance’ in
Morocco, and in Muslim societies in general. Still, the real intent behind these
representations is in fact to draw a kind of difference between western women
and Muslim women so as to display the fact that women in the ‘west’ are more
‘liberated’ and ‘respected’ than in Eastern societies.
In a nutshell, the novel in question has tried to draw a negative image about
Morocco in particular, and about Islam and Muslims in general. It makes use
of women’s case in Morocco as a means to articulate a hateful orientalist
discourse against Muslims and Islam. Such western attitudes toward Muslims
are not surprising, but expected from a people who have never ceased to attack
Islam since antiquity.

1.1.2 Lord of the Desert: ‘Harem’ representation

The presence or the representation of ‘harem’ in most orientalist narratives

tends to be an omnipresent phenomenon. As the case with ‘sheik desert
popular romance’, it is hardly to come up with a “sheik desert’ romance novel
which does not tackle the issue of a Sheik with his ‘harem’ in their separate
interior. This issue of ‘harem’ representation, in particular, seems to be
timeless, and is opted for at any age and at any time. It is only enough for a
romance writer to refer to the word ‘harem’ in order to seduce western readers
and to make them live in a world of ‘fantasy’ and ‘exoticism’. Arguing for the
central presence of the cult of ‘harem’ in most orientalist discourses, Reina
Lewis says that

Although European orientalism was a heterogeneous

phenomenon, it can be argued that the cult of the harem was
central to the fantasies that structure the orientalist discourse.
The mystique of the forbidden harem stemmed from the vision
of it as a segregated space, a polygamous realm, from which

71
 all men except the husband (generally conceptualized as
sultan) and his eunuchs were barred.136

It can be understood from the above passage that the west is so obsessed
with this notion of ‘harem’ that a writer needs only to raise it in his/her novel
to incite as many readers as possible. Indeed, the mystery of the orient, for
orientalists, resides mainly in raising issues of sex and fantasy; thus,
mentioning the word ‘harem’ is largely sufficient to serve those mysteries. In
his fascinating book about the postcards of Algerian women and aspects of
orientalist discourse in such postcards, Mallek Alloula argues that

there is no phantasm, though, without sex, and in this

orientalism, a confection of the best and the worst _ a
central figure emerges, the very embodiment of the
obsession: the harem. A simple allusion to it is enough to
open wide the floodgate of hallucination just as it is about to
run dry. 137

In this passage, Alloula makes it clear how the very mention of ‘harem’ is
sexually oriented, and raises sexual fantasies within western readers. With
imperial romance, infusing texts with a kind of orientalist discourse is not the
sole reason; it is also due to the tendency of editors and writers to seduce as
many readers as possible that pushes them to eroticise and exoticise their
writings. And this is actually part and parcel of the dynamics of popular
romance as a form of mass fiction. In all romance novels that are subject to
analysis in this research, the cult of harem is visibly present. Henceforth, we
will take Diana Palmer’s Lord of the Desert as an example, to delve into how
this issue of harem representation is tackled.
Throughout this novel, the reader comes across with many passages which
aim at exoticizing the oriental settings both in Morocco and in Qawi (an
imaginative country in the Middle East). Both Gretchen, the heroine, and her

136
Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity, and Representation (London: Routledge,
1996) 111.
137
Malek Alloula, The Colonial Harem. Trans. Myrna and Wlad Godzich, (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press1986) 3.

72
friend Maggie describe their coming to the orient as a “leap of faith’ into a new
part of the world. Still, it should be argued that their encounter with the ‘orient’
in this novel is not their first time; but, they were introduced to it before by
means of novels, travel accounts and movies made about the orient. Thus, it is
clearly enough what images about the orient they are bearing with them. For
instance, the narrator describes Gretchen the first time she sets her foot in
Morocco as being “wide-awake and eager for morocco, the land of camels and
the Sahara desert, and the famous Berbers of the Rif Mountains. She could
hardly wait to see the ancient land in its desert setting.” (L.D. p. 11). So, given
such descriptions, one can sense to what extent Gretchen is biased about
Morocco and the orient in general.
That the above characters are influenced by previous orientalist works is
made obvious via their reference to some famous orientalist works, which
negatively stereotype the orient. For instance, in different passages the heroine
reminds the reader of some famous orientalist texts such as E.M. Hull’s novel
The Sheik and its version as a movie starred by Rudolph Valentino, and the
famous orientalist movie of The wind and The Lion. Such forms of
intertextuality are indeed sufficient to display the orientalist discourse with
which Lord of Desert is infused.
In this novel, Gretchen, the heroine, and her friend, Maggie, come to
Morocco, escaping their homes in order to seek adventure and romance.
Maggie is supposed to stay with Gretchen in Morocco for some days, and then
leaves for Qawi in Middle East to work with the Sheik of this country. Given
their readings about Sheiks and their sexual appeals, Gretchen and Maggie
have been enthusiastic to see and experience a love story with a Sheik in his
world of ‘harem’. So the very word of Sheik gives rise to images of harem,
concubines in their secluded interiors.138 Gretchen says to her friend the first

138
The word Sheik has in fact been used and abused in different imperial and narrative writings.
According to Jack Shaheen, “ the word “sheikh” means, literally, a wise elderly person, the head of the
family, but you would not know that from watching any of Hollywood’s [or reading any of sheik
desert romance’s] “sheikh” features … Throughout Arab world, to show respect, people address
Muslim religious leaders as sheikhs … Instead of presenting sheikhs as elderly men of wisdom,
screenwriters [ and popular romance writers] offer a romantic melodramas portraying them as stooges-
in-sheets, slovenly, hook-nosed potentates intent on capturing pale-faced blondes for their harems … ”

73
time they have come to Morocco: “Just imagine having a fantasy like that
actually come to life, Maggie. Being abducted by a handsome sheik and having
him fall on love with you! I get goose bumps just thinking about it”. (L.D. p.
19) This is how the orient at large is imagined, being thought of as ‘an exotic’
‘romantic’ space where westerners’ wish-fulfilment can achieved. Edward Said
calls attention to this point in his argument that

the orient was almost a European invention, and had been

since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting
memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.139

Nevertheless, the above characters are afraid to stay in the orient because of
the stereotypes they have brought with them about oriental people and culture.
For instance, in the following passage, the narrator tells us how Gretchen feels
about her friend, Maggie, who is supposed to go to work with the Sheik of
Qawi:

Gretchen didn’t say another word. But she hoped most

sincerely that Maggie knew what she was doing. It was one
thing to be a tourist, quite anther to be dependent in another
country. The job sounded almost too good to be true. And
wasn’t Qawi a very male dominated society where women
had separate quarters and separate lives from men? It did
seem odd that the sheik would want only a female public
relations officer, but one from a foreign country known for
liberate women […] she did not want her friend in danger.
(L.D. p. 25)

In this passage, the narrator describes how Gretchen is worried about her
friend, Maggie, who intends to travel to Qawi to work for a Sheik as his
personal social assistant. Being biased against Arab countries and how women
are treated in these countries, Gretchen is afraid that her friend will be subject
to such oppression and seclusion. Raising such a question as “And wasn’t
Qawi a very male dominated society where women had separate quarters and
separate lives from men?” is very revealing. This question reveals about her

Jack G. Shaheen, “Introduction”, Reel Bad Arabs: how Hollywood Vilifies a people, (New York :
Olive Branch Press, 2001) 19.
139
Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) 1.

74
stereotypes that all Arab countries are male dominated, where women are
oppressed and secluded in separate quarters. This notion of “separate quarters”
suggests the idea of the ‘harem’, where women are ‘imprisoned’ and ‘hidden’.
Their only function is to serve the sexual desires of their sheiks. Thus,
imagining such things makes Gretchen afraid that her friend will also be one of
the sheik’s ‘harems’.
Unexpectedly, the plan of the two characters has been interrupted. Maggie
has received a call that her lover got an accident, and that she should go back
to United States to take care of him. She suggests on Gretchen to go disguised
in her place to work with the Sheik in Qawi. In fact, Gretchen feels hesitant to
accept the offer because she is very prejudiced about working with a Sheik in
an Arab Muslim environment. In her answer to Maggie’s offer, Gretchen tells
her:
“Oh, that’s a great idea” [...] “I can be wife number four
wrapped up from head to toe in somebody’s harem” (L.D. p.
29-30)

In this answer, Gretchen is very sarcastic, trying to ridicule the situation of

Muslim women’s dressing and their religion which allows man to get married
with four wives. In her reference to the way of clothing, Gretchen is mocking
at the Islamic way of dressing especially the ‘veil’. For westerners, such kind
of dressing is very primitive and traditional, or as Gretchen said in one passage
as “prehistoric”. Therefore, such ironic depictions are in fact part and parcel of
the orientalist discourse which is kept being repeated in most imperial
narratives about the orient. Actually, one of the essential means of conveying
the orientalist discourse is the repetition of the same images and discourses
voiced out by previous orientalists. By so doing, stereotypes and other
misrepresentations are being engraved in the mind of western readers, who are
eager to receive those representations.
Importantly enough, the orientalist discourse about ‘native women’ in the
Arab world is more emphasized when Gretchen moves with the sheik Philippe
Sabon to Qawi, a Middle Eastern country supposed to represent all Arab

75
Muslim countries. Inside Qawi, Gretchen is represented as being face to face
with the mysterious world she reads about in different imaginative orientalist
writings. In fact, what is striking in such romances is that the writer represents
some of those stereotypes in a dialogic way in terms of making the indigenous
people speak about themselves, the fact that gives a sense of strength to such
discourses. For example, the sheik Philippe is represented as the main
character which proves or disproves Gretchen’s stereotypes. He is made to
speak about his society in a way which assures Gretchen about her stereotypes.
For example, telling her about how women are supposed to live in his society,
Philippe says “it would never occur to me to leave you seen by any of the men
in my personal guard or my circle of friends. You would be the only occupant
of my harem”. (L.D. p. 128) Such announcement ensures Gretchen about the
fact that women in the Arab world are secluded, deprived from going to public
spaces or working outside their ‘harems’, being there only to serve their
husbands’ needs.
By the same token, other stereotypes are transmitted in different passages
such as “selling women” in Arab countries, and making harm to women who
do not wear the Islamic dress. For instance, Philippe told Gretchen that
wearing the veil is “the same as opening an umbrella during a raining storm in
your country.” (L.D. p. 168), and that “there are still those among my people
who might do you harm if they see your shape blatantly displayed”. (L.D. p.
169) Actually, such images simply aim to dramatize the image of the Muslim
women as being secluded and invisible in their ‘harem’. Such dramatization of
the image of women in ‘harem’ is more strengthened aesthetically by the
description of “The Palais Tatluk”, the palace where Philippe and Gretchen
will live. When Gretchen and Philippe arrive to Qawi, the first thing that
attracts her sight is the architectural design of the Palais:

[...] it came into view, a towering, sprawling white stone

structure with arched doorways and arched windows with
black grillwork on both stories. There were no balconies, but
then she remembered that in Arab households, the balconies

76
 always faced inward, not outward, so that the women were
hidden to the eyes of the world. (L.D. p.174-175)

Such an aesthetic description of the Palais is largely meant to draw an

image in the reader’s mind about the architectural building where ‘harems’ are
secluded. The meticulous description of the balconies as being “always faced
inward, not out ward, so that the women were hidden to the eyes of the world”
is very telling in the sense that the writer wants to draw the attention to the
double invisibility of women in the Arab world, both in their clothes and in
their households, which does not allow the intrusion of foreign eyes. By such
description, Gretchen is represented as entering to a very different world par
excellence.
Given Gretchen’s gender, she has managed to access to women’s
‘harem’. Philippe introduced her to Leila, his sister, who is going to take care
of her in women’s interior. In this passage, the narrator describes how Leila
tries to familiarize Gretchen with the new place:

Leila took Gretchen into luxurious confines of the white and

gold quarters in the women’s section of the palace. The Texas
woman stood and stared at it with disbelief. It was like
something out of a luxury magazine, she thought, with lavish
tile on the floors and even that walls, with a bathroom the size
of her house back in Jocobsville, complete with huge bathing
pool and sky light. The pool was surrounded by the same tile
that graced the floors; and potted palms and flowering plants
all but concealed. (L.D. p. 192)

In the light of this description of the palais interior, it appears that the narrator
intends to aestheticize women’s section in order to give to the reader an
impression of those ‘Turkish luxurious’ or Arabian Nights palaces. Such
palaces are essential in western myths about the orient since they signify
Arab’s ‘luxury’, ‘sensuality’, and ‘exoticism’. Such images are emphasized by
Leila when she informs Gretchen that the above women’s section is the old
‘harem’, where Philippe’s grandfather “had twenty concubines, and this is
where they stayed surrounded by eunuchs”. (L.D. p.191). In fact, such images
and representations have become part of western orientalist register which is

77
inevitably opted for by any orientalist to write about the orient so as to meet
western expectations.
In sum, the danger of these orientalist representations resides in their
generalizations and selectivity. Romance writers do not give space to the reader to
imagine possible situations, but they are rather meticulous in terms of the selection of
images to be represented. And by denying the existence of difference and variety in
what they represent, they come up with generalizing judgements. Such
generalizations and stereotypes are strengthened by their being inherited and repeated
by a writer after another. These stereotypes about the ‘harem’ and the fantasy of the
orient can be traced back to many centuries ago, but they are kept alive even
nowadays in the twentieth first century. For instance, contemporary imperial romance
is a good example of contemporary genres which keep dramatizing and reviving the
same orientalist stereotypes. Lord of the Desert is written in 2000, but one can not
distinguish it from other very early narrative accounts as far as the orientalist
discourse is concerned. Stereotyping becomes an ongoing process, which does not
stop but keeps developing in new different forms.

1.1.3 The Veiled Web: The trope of ‘veil’

Catherine Assaro’s novel, The Veiled Web, can be described as a different

novel in comparison to the above two novels because of its mixture of romance
and science fiction, and setting its events in the future (2010). The plot of the
novel in cursory revolves around a love story between Rashid Al-Jazerri, a
successful Moroccan genius who has invented an efficient Artificial
intelligence, and Lucia Del mar, a famous American dancer. The two meet
each other in Spain; but they have been obliged to escape to Morocco to hide
there, after a failed attempt to kidnap them. They get married in Morocco,
staying to live with Rashid’s family in Atlas Mountains for some time. And it
is via the experience of Lucia with Rashid’s family in Morocco that the novel
exposes many different cultural and religious conflicts between Islam and the
West.
Culturally speaking, The Veiled Web raises many controversial issues as far
as the relationship between Islam and the West are concerned. In this section,

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we will limit ourselves to the politics of ‘veil’ representation in terms of how
Catherine Assaro conceives of wearing the veil in a Muslim country. As a
matter of fact, wearing the veil, as an Islamic practice, has been used and
abused in different western narratives. By and large, the veil is represented in
western narratives as a symbol of ‘oppression’, ‘enslavement’ and ‘seclusion’.
In this respect, Leila Ahmed argues that

Veiling-to western eyes, the most visible marker of the

differentness and inferiority of Islamic societies-became the
symbol now of both oppression of women (or, in the language
of the day, Islam’s degradation of women) and the
backwardness of Islam, and it became the open target of
colonial attack and the spearhead of the assault on Muslim
societies.140

In saying this, Leila Ahmed displays the hostility of the west to Islam and to its
practices. The West has kept assuming Eurocentric attitudes towards Muslims
and Islam, in the sense that they think that the solution for Muslims’
‘backwardness’ is to join the western model of ‘modernization’. Some western
discourses try to create a metonymic association between the orient and its
women, linking between unveiling women, which signifies for them
‘modernization’, with the transformation and modernization of the orient itself.
In this sense, it should be argued that the west’s call for ‘modernization’ is just
one way to homogenize the ‘other’, imposing the western model by negating
‘other’s’ differences. The veil in Islam is part and parcel of one’s identity and
one’s culture, and removing it can mean a distortion of one’s identity.
In this connection, The Veiled Web does not only revive the old western
stereotypes about the veil, but it tries to prolong such stereotypes by means of
representing those same attitudes in the future. I.e., it is by setting the events of
her novel in 2010 that Assaro enhances and prolongs those stereotypes about
Muslim women and Islam. By so doing, she accentuates the same old
orientalist discourses which look upon the orient as being in a timeless, stable
and unchangeable state. Regardless of the great changes that have been taking

140
Ahmed 152.

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place in Morocco and in many other Muslim countries, the writer keeps
reminding the reader that these countries remain as they ‘were’, ‘oppressing’
and ‘secluding’ women in their veils, and ‘harems’.
In this respect, before moving to discuss the representation of the veil in
Assaro’s novel, it seems important to read the paratext of the novel141. Two
main elements in the paratext appear to be significant as far as the trope of veil
is concerned: the title and the cover image. Concerning the title, it introduces
the reader to a veiled, invisible and unknown web; and this web is meant to
refer to a Muslim society, which is Morocco, where women are obliged to
wear the veil. This image is emphasized by the cover picture in which a
beautiful woman is pictured with only her face and hands that are visible. This
woman is represented as wearing the veil, but this veil is drawn in a form of a
horse archway. Such architecture is known to be part and parcel of Islamic
civilization. Hence, according to this horse archway architecture, the reader is
put in an Islamic context in which women are obliged to wear the veil. Still,
what is at stake in such representation of a veiled woman on the cover is the
tendency to dramatize western connotations of the veil, which, for westerners,
signifies the ‘oppression’ and ‘seclusion’ of Muslim women.
By the developments of the novel’s events, the above connotations of the
veil are buttressed via the experience of Lucia Del Mar in Morocco. Lucia
finds herself in a different place and culture, where she finds difficulties to
adapt herself to that new context. Once, Rashid’s sister, Khadija, comes to
Lucia with a Jellabs, and Litham, asking her to wear them in order to go to
Hammam. But, Lucia abstains from putting on that veil, especially because of
her awareness of her being Christian. When she is asked to wear the veil, “a
flush started in Lucia’s neck (where she puts on a cross) and spread to her
face”. (V.W.p.152). For Lucia, “wearing the veil had far more significance
than simply putting black chiffon across her face”. (V.W. p. 153). Showing her
rejection to put on the veil, Lucia tells to Khadija “I can not do that”. Here,

141
See the appendix

80
describing her psychological state when she is offered to put on the veil, the
narrator says:
Lucia felt as she stood on shifting cultural sands with the tide
eroding the landscape she recognized. She did not want to do
this. It goes against principles basic to her personality. (V.W.
p. 154).

According to this reaction towards wearing the veil, it comes into view
the symbolic connotations of the veil, which, for Lucia, does not mean only
“black chiffon across her face”, but more than that. In addition to many
stereotypes Lucia has about “veil”, she also decides not to wear it out of
respect to her religion. She is fully aware of her belonging to a religion
different from Islam, and that wearing the veil means a kind of infringement
for her religion. If so, it should be argued that both veiling and unveiling are
religious and cultural practices, which should be respected. Hence, the western
call for unveiling women for the sake of ‘modernizing’ them expresses lack of
respect to Muslim’s religion and culture. Since a western woman, like Lucia,
rejects to wear the veil because of her religion, the Muslim woman also should
be respected in wearing the veil because it is a must in her religion. But,
because of its being eurocentrically oriented, the west is not able accept such
mutual cultural respect, in which each one respects the other’s difference. The
west usually takes what belongs to it as the epitome of perfection, refusing any
kind of negotiation.
Importantly, in order not to embarrass Rashid’s family in the neighborhood,
and because of her awareness that people in Morocco value honor and dignity,
Lucia is represented accepting, by the end, to put on the Litham, but just for
one day as she has told to Khadija. According to this, there seems that the
novel seeks to attract the attention of readers to the fact that wearing the veil in
a Muslim country is obligatory for all people, be they Muslims or not. It is true
that Muslim women are recommended to wear the veil, but it can not be denied
that a large number of Muslim women nowadays do not wear the veil. And no
one is going to punish them for doing so, let alone non-Muslim women. So the
writer’s representation of Khadija as obliging Lucia to wear the veil so as to

81
avoid embarrassment in the neighborhood is extremely exaggerating. Actually,
such an image can make western readers believe that once they come to a
Muslim country, they must wear the veil. And this represents Islam in a
negative way as being an intolerant religion which is governed by violence and
enforcement to follow its practices.
Another extreme representation of an Islamic practice concerns the way of
wearing the veil. In this passage the narrator describes how Khadija arranged
the veil for Lucia:

Khadija helped her arrange the veil and hood of her

jellaba. Looking in the mirror, Lucia saw the hood
covering her hair and forehead. The Litham hung across
her nose, so only her eyes showed, large and a dark above
the chiffon. The lower edge of the veil, with its white
embroidery, came to a rounded point that outlines of her
face through the sheer cloth. (V.W. p. 154)

In the light of this passage, it is observed that the narrator, first of all, shows
about her being familiar with Moroccan culture because of her being able to
describe in a meticulous way the manner some Moroccan women used to wear
the veil. Still, what is at stake in the above description is the fact the narrator
represents one of the oldest ways of wearing the veil, which hardly exists
nowadays. By doing so, the writer is probably trying to ‘exoticise’ and
exaggerate the way the veil is worn in Morocco, as a means of ‘invisibility’
and ‘seclusion’. In fact, tending to focus on what is exceptional and exotic is a
common feature among orientalist writers, because in this way they try to
construct a dividing line between the west and the east, which can show the
“superiority” of the former over the “inferiority” of the latter.
Most importantly, in order to lay emphasis on the imprisoning fact of
putting on the veil, the narrator, in the following passage, dramatizes on how
Lucia is feeling, after she has put on the veil:

Although it is easy to breathe, the cloth bothered her. Even

after four days, she missed being able to go where she
pleased, in clothes that felt normal to her[…] she had grown
up in a land of wide-open spaces, endless sky, and a fierce

82
 independence that remained from the days of the frontier.
Now she felt confined. Constricted. (V. W. p. 155) (added
emphasis).

This passage constructs a clear opposition between “veiled Lucia” and

“unveiled Lucia”, and between “an imprisoned Lucia” and a “liberated Lucia”.
The above emphasized words display such binary opposition. That is,
describing Lucia as “missing being able to go where she pleased, in clothes
that felt normal” is used as way to reflect the imprisoning fact of wearing the
veil. And saying that “she had grown up in a land of wide-open spaces, endless sky,
and a fierce independence” while now, when she is in an oriental society, “she
felt confined. Constricted.” implies drawing a comparison between western
“liberated” societies and oriental “oppressing” societies. In reality, these binary
oppositions are meant to display to the reader how veiling, a typical Islamic
practice, equals a sort of “imprisonment”, “enslavement”, “confinement” and
“restriction”, whereas unveiling, which is typically western, “frees” and
“liberates” women from any form of restriction or limitation. In this case, “the
veil is taken as a sign of the inherently oppressive and unfree nature of the
entire tradition of Islam and oriental cultures and by extension it is used as a
proof of oppression of women in these societies.”142 Throughout the experience
of Lucia, the narrator intends to emphasize the idea of wearing the veil as a
constraint for a woman to attain freedom; thus presenting the western model of
living as a solution for women’s ‘liberation’.
By the same token, this idea of the veil as a means of imprisonment and
confinement is emphasized throughout this description of how Lucia feels
while she is wearing the veil: “It made Lucia feel strange. Veiled, hidden, and
forbidden, she had become invisible.” Here, the choice of words such as
“strange” “Veiled”, “hidden”, “forbidden”, and “invisible” to describe a
veiled woman is very revealing. They are mainly used to make the reader
experience a sense of ‘oppression’, ‘invisibility’, and ‘exoticism’ while
thinking of the “oriental woman”. Also, those descriptions are meant to
142
MeyDa YEGENOGLU, “Saratorical Fabricatios: Enlightenment and western feminism”, in
Postcolonialism, Feminism and Religious Discourse, Ed. Laura E. Donaldson & Kwok Pui-lan (New
York: Routledge, 2002)84.

83
represent Islam as an ‘oppressing’ religion of women, while the west as a
model of ‘liberation’ and ‘freedom’. By so doing, it comes into view to what
extent the west is Eurocentric and narrow-minded as far as the other’s cultural
and religious differences are concerned.
In a word, the novel’s failure to accept Islamic practice of wearing the veil
and enhancing at the same time putting on “the cross” displays western
narrow-mindedness and Eurocentrism. Both veiling and unveiling are to be
considered as cultural facts, meaning that as long as the western woman has
the right to be unveiled in her society and culture, the Muslim woman has also
all the right to be veiled in her society and culture. Thus, veiling should not be
considered as an ‘oppressive’ practice, but as part and parcel of one’s religion,
identity and culture, which should be respected.

1.2 The ‘western’/ ‘Oriental woman’: Signs of differences

In the light of the above discussion of how ‘Muslim women’ are

represented under western female gaze, it should be argued that such
representations are meant explicitly or implicitly to construct signs of
differences between the western women and the oriental woman. Such
differences make out of the western woman look as ‘superior’, ‘liberated’ and
‘modern’, whereas the ‘oriental woman’ as ‘inferior’, ‘oppressed’ and
‘backward’. For westerners, all codes associated with Muslim/oriental women
such as ‘veil’ and ‘harem’ are read as signs, not of cultural differences, but of
‘oppression’, ‘primitiveness’, and ‘backwardness’.
In this relevance, Palmer’s Lord of the Desert is going to be given as an
example to display how the western woman is represented as the antithesis of
the oriental woman. In this work, focus will be centered upon how Palmer
constructs a role model of a western woman who is represented as being well
‘sophisticated’, ‘educated’ and ‘attractive’, a woman who makes miracles. By
so doing, the ‘oriental’ woman is portrayed as lacking all those attributes and
appears ‘inferior’ in comparison to the western woman.

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1.2.1 Lord of the Desert: The allegory of impotence

In Palmer’s novel Lord of the Desert, one of the main intriguing issues
raised in it is the one of sexual impotence of the hero, sheik Philippe Sabon,
who is supposed to represent an Arab Muslim community. In fact, this issue of
impotence has less to do with sexual side than with many sides such as the
political, economic, and the social impotence of Arab countries. For the sake of
better understanding of this issue, it will be necessary to contextualize the
events of the story.
Following the general formula of romance novels, Lord of the Desert
revolves around a love story between Gretchen and Philippe Sabon, who meet
each other by chance in Morocco. Gretchen, the heroine, comes with her
friend, Maggie, to Morocco to spend their vacation. As planned by the two,
when they finish their vacation, Gretchen will come back to United States
while Maggie will go to Qawi (an imaginative country in the Middle East)
where she is going to work as a personal assistant of the Sheik of this country.
This plan has been disrupted when Maggie was informed that her lover had a
dangerous accident; so she has been obliged to go back home, leaving
Gretchen alone in Morocco. Maggie suggests on her friend to go disguised to
work in Qawi in her place.
Before going to Qawi, Gretchen stays alone at the hotel preparing herself to
take the adventure of the new job with the Sheik. The idea of working with
Sheik was a mysterious thing for her. The image of Sheik reminds her of
Rudolph Valentino in the silent film entitled ‘The Sheik’. While talking about
the sheik of Qawi, Gretchen told to Maggie:

“May be he’ll be gorgeous and sexy and look like

Rudolph Valentino. Did you ever see that silent movie,
‘The Sheik’?”[…] “Just imagine having a fantasy like
that actually come to life, Maggie. Being abducted by
handsome sheikh on a white stallion and having him fall

85
 madly in love with you! I get goose bumps just thinking
about it.” (L.D. p. 19)

In this passage, Gretchen reveals about her many stereotypes she holds about
the orient, as being a place of having romance with an Arab Sheik who is
“gorgeous”, “sexy”, “and “handsome” riding his “white stallion”. The
reference to Rudolph Valentino’s film is also very revealing in terms that this
film or in its form as a novel constitutes one of the basic classical orientalist
works which negatively depicts Arab’s women, environment, and culture. In
this sense, it appears that intertextuality is one of the most important means
used by orientalist writers to enforce and enhance their stereotypes. Actually,
Palmer’s reference to ‘The Sheik’ is meant to attract the senses of the reader
and to introduce him/her to a world of fantasy, in which they can eroticize
themselves.
With such images about the sheik, Gretchen is curious to know more about
the Sheik of Qawi and to live in his different world, which will be, according
to her, full of adventure and romance. But, before her travel to Qawi, she has
met the Sheik by chance in the hotel where she has been staying, though not
knowing that he is the Sheik of Qawi. They have been attracted by each other,
and their relationship becomes closer and closer. As an important component
of the formula in popular romance, the hero and the heroine are usually
represented as being well sophisticated and attractive. In this sense, Gretchen is
represented as being a beautiful woman, with “her long blond hair loose and
faintly waving down her back” (L.D. p. 81). Philippe, who is originally an
Arab, is represented as being attractive and handsome; but he is not pure Arab,
being represented as “darker than the most American men, but not radically
so, and lighter than some of the Arabs and Berbers”. (L.D. p. 33). And in
another passage, Philippe is described as having the “French blood, as well as
Turkish and Arab” (L.D. p. 133).
In the light of this portrait of both characters, it should be emphasized that
western women with the blond hair are represented in most romances as being
the role model of beauty, which implicitly negates and lessens the value of

86
women with non-blond hair, who are supposed to be the Eastern women. Such
idea is emphasized by presenting romance heroes, sheik Philippe in Lord of
The Desert as an example, who madly fall in love simply with a woman with
blond hair. By the same token, the hero is meant to be represented as being
hybrid in order to be accepted by western readership. A pure Arab, who is
usually depicted as being dark or brown, is not expected to be in love with a
western woman because of her being considered as superior than him. All such
depictions are in fact eurocentrically oriented.
Still, regardless of this portrait of the two characters, Diana Palmer
explicitly violates one of the important components of the romance formula.
That is, the heroes are supposed to be sexually potent so that the western
heroine’s sexual desires will be satisfied. But in this case, Palmer introduces
Philippe as being sexually impotent for more than nine years, after he had an
accident. And since that time he has lost hope to make sex or give birth to
children, after he has been assured by most famous “European doctors” that he
would never be able to do so. Actually, given the fact that Philippe is
represented as being originally an Arab and as the head of a Muslim country,
his being represented as being sexually impotent should be put under question.
Such sexual impotence is an allegory that tends to reveal about the impotence
of Arab countries in all fields, be they economic, social or political. Moreover,
this discourse of impotence is part and parcel of the orientalist/colonial
discourse which tries to reveal the weakness of the non westerners, and to give
legitimacy to their intervention to help them to overcome their impotence.
In this respect, Gretchen is represented as the “Christ” who has come from
the west in order to save Philippe from his impotence, and to show him how a
western woman can make miracles by enabling him both to have sex and to
give birth to children, the fact that has not able to be done by any Arab woman
in his country. This indeed reveals a colonial discourse which constructs signs
of difference between the ‘Western’ woman and the ‘Eastern’ woman in terms
of celebrating the potency of the western woman. Gretchen is represented as
the first woman to arouse Philippe’s sexual desires, after he has been assured

87
by doctors that “he would never function as a man” (LD p. 110). The narrator
dramatizes this event as follows:

Nine years. Nine long, endless, agonizing years of

impotence that everyone said was permanent. And he was
aroused by a virgin. Not only that, but the one woman on
the planet that he couldn’t seduce […] now there was a tiny
possibility that he could still be a man. (LD p. 110).

But after his first contact with her, Philippe starts feeling to function as “a
whole man”, which is something incredible for him. “He saw it and thanked
providence for sending him this woman, who made him come alive again, who
made him feel like a man again.” (L.D. p. 146). In this sense, the reader gets
impressed by the power of Gretchen who is able to put an end to the nine long
endless years of agony and impotence. In fact, this image is allegorical in the
sense that the two characters are supposed to represent different nations and
different races so that the image of Philippe’s impotence is an image of the
impotence of all Arab Muslim men and their countries. And in order to
overcome their impotence, they should be dependent on the west to help them
get over their impotence and powerlessness.
This powerlessness of the Arab countries is referred to implicitly in many
occasions in terms of primitivising these countries. Qawi can be considered as
a microcosmic example of all the Arab countries so that primitivisng it means
primitivising all the Arab countries. While informing Gretchen about his
country, Philippe tells her:

“You go to a country vastly different from your own, much less

sophisticated than Morocco. Many modern conveniences do not
exist there, and even electricity is recent addition. The people of
Qawi were largely nomadic until the early part of century. When
it was parceled out among the Europeans, the people resisted and
many families were decimated. It will require a great deal of
tolerance for you to adjust to such archaic surroundings”. (L.D. p.
91)

Such quote is very telling as far as the discourse of primitivisation is

concerned. The writer’s reliance on dialogism is also very significant in terms

88
of giving credibility to what is communicated by characters. For example,
given that Philippe is the ruler of an Arab country, what he has said above is a
sort of self-primitivisation in terms that the narrator voices out her orientalist
discourse via Philippe so that all what he says gets a kind of authenticity. In
this light, it comes into view that there is a kind of interlink between the sexual
impotence Philippe and economic and social impotence of his country.
More importantly, given the fact that Philippe is described as living in a
world in which “a man is judged by his ability with women, and his ability to
father children” (L.D. p. 235), his continuance as a ruler of his country
depends heavily on his ability to get a son. For Philippe, the chance to have a
child is something impossible. But with ‘the western woman’, Gretchen,
everything is possible! She has succeeded to get pregnant with Philippe.
Giving him a child is represented as a second miracle the western woman has
managed to do. This fact can explain how Gretchen is represented as a
‘miraculous’ western woman, who has managed to do what no ‘oriental
woman’ could do with sheik Philippe. But this is just one way used by
westerners to construct differences between the western woman and the eastern
woman, thus showing the ‘superiority’ of the western woman.
In addition to saving the Sheik from his sexual’ impotence’, Gretchen is
also represented as a ‘courageous’ woman who knows how to use pistols, and
fears no death; as an ‘intelligent’ woman who has been able to save Sheik’s
country from an outside attack; and as a ‘modern’ woman who has managed to
bring ‘modernity’, ‘civilization’ and ‘happiness’ to all Qawi’s natives. Such
representations, in cursory, are, of course, forms of ‘idealizing’ western
women, and dramatizing the ‘superiority’ of western woman over Eastern
woman. They are intended to construct an antithesis between ‘western’ woman
and ‘oriental’ woman by means of which the former looks ‘superior’ over the
latter. Such forms of binary oppositions are as old as the orientalist discourse, a
discourse which intends to construct ontological and epistemological
differences between the ‘occident’ and the ‘orient’.

89
 In the light of what has been said, it appears how Lord of the Desert tries to
construct rigid signs of difference between western woman and non western
woman, by means of representing the former as more ‘developed’,
‘sophisticated’ and ‘courageous’ than the latter. How the western woman saved
the sheik from his sexual impotence is also revealing in terms of representing
western woman as being highly potent, not only sexually, but also socially and
civilizationally. So it can be said that the above impotence has been in fact
used allegorically to refer to the impotence of Arab countries in all spheres,
and that their cure is to be found with westerners.

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2. Space and the construction of “imaginative geography”143

This section concerns itself with the investigation of how space is constructed in
the three romance novels under question in this study. Space construction in “imperial
popular romance” is very significant in the sense that it contributes to set a kind of
“imaginative geography” between the ‘I’ and the “other”. In all the novels we are going
to analyse, space is represented as a signifier of difference between the West and the
East, as well as a signifier of difference between ‘civilization’ and ‘non-civilisation’.
This section is split into two sub-sections. The first deals with the
mis/representation of the ‘oriental space’ in the light of Diana Palmer’s Lord of the
Desert, in which we will discuss how ‘oriental space’ is imagined /invented by
westerners; and in the light of Virginia’ Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco, in which
focus will be addressed to the investigation how postcolonial space of some colonised
countries is mis/represented. The second sub-section will embark on studying the
politics and poetics of surveillance in Catherine Assaro’s A Veiled Web. This sub-
section will try to answer these questions: how ‘oriental space’ is surveyed under
western eyes? How does surveillance manage to control and construct ‘oriental space’?
And how can space be gendered?

2.1 The (mis)representation of ‘Oriental space’

2.1.1 Lord of the Desert: ‘Qawi’ as an imaginary space

Throughout Lord of the Desert, the reader comes across imaginary spaces,
which do not exist in reality, but at the same time express a certain reality which has
been constructed in western imagination. These spaces are depicted with an ‘oriental
flavour’. In this novel, we have an imaginary country called Qawi which is located in
the Middle East. Qawi in fact is used as a metonymic space to represent all Arab
Muslim countries. I.e. Qawi is represented as an oil country, whose people are mostly
Muslims and speak Arabic. But, throughout this depiction, Lord of the Desert is
entangled in the (mis)representation of ‘oriental space’ by means of dramatising and
endorsing many stereotypes and clichés that have been constructed about the orient. For

143
This phrase is owed to Said’s use of it in a section entitled as “Imaginative Geography and its
representations: orientalizing the oriental”, in Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin,
1978), 49.

91
instance, Qawi is represented as a ‘desert’ space, with palm tress, tents, and
camels as a means of transportation.
What is more striking in Lord of the Desert is the fusion between real
places and imaginary ones, pushing readers to see what is imaginary as real
and vice versa. For illustration, at the very beginning of the novel, the reader is
introduced to Morocco, where the heroine, Gretchen, and her friend have come
to spend their vacation. And after this vacation, Gretchen has travelled to Qawi
to work with the sheik of this country. This shift from a real place (Morocco),
where cities such as Casablanca, Tangier and Asilah are mentioned, to an
imaginary space (Qawi) reflects that fusion between the real and the imaginary,
between reality and fantasy. Still, in terms of representation, both spaces are
‘orientalised’ and ‘exoticized’, being represented as symmetric and similar
spaces.
Such similarity is apparent in the way Morocco has been first introduced at
the very beginning of the novel. When Gretchen has arrived to Morocco, she
has been described as being wide awake and eager for Morocco, “land of
camels, Sahara desert, old median with high adobe walls, Kasbah, grottoes,
market day”, to mention but a few, and “where men and women wore long,
graceful, robes, and women either wore head covers with veils or scarves tied
around their parents” (L.D. 12). Repeatedly, such images and customs of
clothing are kept referred to as being very ‘exotic’, ‘medieval’, and
‘mysterious’ or even ‘prehistoric’. And this is done mainly to dramatise
Morocco’s ‘exoticness’ and ‘differentness’ in comparison to the west.
Similarly, the same images drawn about Morocco are emphasised in the
representation of Qawi space. I.e. when Gretchen and the sheik Philippe have
left Morocco to Qawi, the narrator describes how Gretchen finds Qawi as
being very similar to Morocco:

It was no more what she’d expected than Morocco had been.

There were date palms everywhere, sandy stretches that led to
the Persian Gulf, and sparking blue water. Inside the ancient
wall of the old city, the buildings were blinding white. There
were beautiful mosques and a cathedral, and in the distance,

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 she saw what looked like beginnings of a new modern city.
(L.D. p. 168).

By reading this passage, we can detect how western discourse tends to frame
both Morocco and Qawi in one shape, evading all possible differences between
Morocco (North Africa) and Qawi (Middle East). Throughout the above
juxtaposition between the two spaces, it should be said that the orientalist
discourse appears like a one formula-discourse, which is applied to any oriental
country. And it is in such uniformity of discourse where western hegemony
resides, trying to minimise and reduce all Arab Countries into one unified
image.
Over and above, in describing Qawi’s cities as being in “the beginnings”
of modernity, the narrator conveys a sense that Qawi is still a ‘primitive’
country, which is in the process of modernising itself. In fact, this discourse of
primitivising Qawi is incessantly repeated throughout the novel at many
different levels. On the spatial level, Qawi is represented as desert space,
lacking means of modernity, and where people are still living in tents and using
camels and horses to move from place to place.
In this respect, the paratext is revealing. The cover image represents a
sheik, who is the ruler of Qawi, in a white stallion riding in an open desert.
This image is introductory to a desert world, which is intended to qualify the
Arab world as a desert space. In the text, that image is made clear. In the
following passage, the sheik of Qawi is described riding his stallion to save his
beloved, Gretchen, from the hands of his enemy:

Gretchen saw a cloud of dust, and riding out of it was a tall

man on creamy Arabian stallion, yelling orders … the party of
Arabs rode like gods on their exquisite horses, standing in the
stirrups to fire on the run.
She managed to get to her feet, thrilling at the way those
men rode, at the very primitive rampage of native tribesmen
against modern guerrillas. That tall Arab on the stallion
fascinated her … his face was covered with white fold cloth,
his head was in the traditional headdress with black ropes
securing it. He looked like every dream of heroism Gretchen
had ever had. A sheik on a stallion, saving the heroine from
the great danger in desert… (L. D. pp249-250)

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This passage reiterates what is depicted in the cover image so as to display the
nature of Qawi’s space and how Arab people are still traditionally fighting by
using horses. The presence of desert, horses, and Arabs in the above passage is
indeed meant to ‘idealise’ and ‘exotcise’ the oriental setting, and to push
western readers to experience an “exotic” Arab oriental space with all its
‘flavour’.
Moreover, describing the ruler of Qawi as being engaged in the fight
with his stallion reflects that Qawi and, by implication many other Arab
countries, are still governed by traditional defence systems, where there is no
separate Army and soldiers, as it is the case in the west. For example, when
Gretchen asks the Sheik of Qawi whether they have an army, he replies: “Not
in the sense you mean, not yet … we are an old country … the rebels will have
to be met in the old way”. By answering her in that way, the Sheik depicts
Gretchen’s country, United States, as superior, whereas his own as inferior. In
such discourses, the narrator intends to construct a kind of binary opposition
between western countries and Arab countries in terms of showing how the
‘West’ is more ‘developed’ and ‘modern’ than the ‘East’.
More importantly, not only the military system that is primitivised, but
even the ruling system in Qawi is also primitivised. Gretchen wants to know
how her Sheik became the head of state. She has been thinking that he has
inherited the crown from his father, but the Sheik has told her: “‘No one
inherits a title among these desert people” he said softly, ‘it is won, and held,
only by the man who can defend it’” (L.D. p.170). So, Qawi is represented as
still being ruled by tribalism, a system in which the powerful rules the weak;
there is no ‘elections’, no ‘democracy’ or ‘parliament’. This is meant as
propaganda of USA’s ‘democracy’ in terms of showing how many Arab
Muslim countries are still in need of ‘American democratic system’ of ruling.
At many times, the narrator constructs binary oppositions between USA and
some of the Arab countries, as it is the case in the following dialogue between
Gretchen and the sheik. Gretchen says to him:

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 “You said that your country was still rather … primitive” his
broad shoulders lifted and fell: “compared to yours, certainly.
But I have great plans for my people, for new educational
facilities and modern hospitals and industry.” (L D p.144)

In this dialogue, it is apparent how the natives are primitivised. By answering

her “compared to yours, certainly”, Sheik is represented as self primitivisng
himself and his people. It is also noticed that his judgement is based on striking
a comparison between his country and Gretchen’s one, which means that the
writer tries via presenting this comparison the superiority of the USA and the
inferiority of Qawi. In sum, the construction of binary oppositions or the
‘Manichean allegory’ between the west and the East is part and parcel of any
orientalist discourse, and this discourse is embodied in the above
representation of Qawi.
Most importantly, in Lord of the Desert the writer keeps referring to Middle
Eastern countries as being dangerous spaces known by wars, crimes, and
atrocities. That is, the oriental space is portrayed as a space of violence,
disorder and chaos. As it is made clear in the text, western media has
contributed a lot to representing Arab Muslim countries as being dangerous
spaces. In one passage, Gretchen tells her friend, Maggie, that “I have heard
some scary things about Middle Eastern countries and beheadings” (L.D.
p.19). This statement displays the many stereotypes constructed about Arab
countries in the west, in which Arabs are linked to violence and danger.
Colonially speaking, representing some Arab countries in such ways can be
used as a pretext for western intervention under the umbrella term of
“civilizing mission”. And that media is one crucial source for diffusing those
stereotypes about Arabs is made clear in Gretchen’s saying that that

“All our television reporters talk about are scandals and

political issues and the latest tragedy. They don’t tell us
one thing about other countries unless somebody
important is murdered in one”. (L.D. p. 52)

Apparently, it is noticed that many stereotypes that westerners have about the
‘orient’ have been an offshoot of western biased media. And no one can deny

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what impact media can have in shaping audience’s attitudes. In addition to
media, fiction does also promote and engrave those stereotypes. And our novel
in question is a vivid example which spreads such above stereotypes. Qawi,
which stands as an allegorical image for all other Arab Muslim countries, is
represented mainly as a desert space fraught with tribal wars, bloodshed and
violence. Thus, through reading such novel, a western reader will certainly
draw a negative image about Arab countries.
On the basis of what has been said, we can conclude that Lord of the Desert
makes use of the imagined space of Qawi as a means to mis/represent,
primitivise, and exoticise Arabs. The novel has managed to do so via mingling
between reality and fantasy, between real places and imagined places, blurring
differences between the two.

2.1.2 Never Marry in Morocco: The representation of postcolonial space

In reading Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco, one easily notices the
strong presence of history as a defining feature of this novel. More specifically,
this novel records, though in a fictional way, some important historical events
which took place during the postcolonial period of Morocco and Algiers such
as the Battle of Algiers and the coup d’état of Skhirat. It also portrays some
repercussions of independence on both the coloniser and the colonised. I.e. for
the coloniser, independence has led to “loss” and “misfortune”; while for the
colonised, it has led to “chaos”, “corruption” and “political instability”. Of
great importance is that this postcolonial condition is narrated from an
American perspective. Thus, the primary goal of this section is to see how the
postcolonial space in North Africa is represented from an American
perspective.
In Never Marry in Morocco, Virginia, both the heroine and narrator, speaks
about her love experience with her French-Moroccan husband, Pierre. Since
Pierre’s parents are living in Morocco, the two go to live with them there.
Pierre’s parents used to be ex-settlers in Algiers, but they have been obliged to
sell all what they have had there after the great battle of Algiers, and have

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come to live in Morocco. They have made a vast fortune during the colonial
period in Algiers, because of the massive land grants they have been given by
the French authorities. They have sold their lands there and came to invest their
money in Morocco. Pierre’s family is an example of French colonial
exploitation, which has been silenced, and sometimes justified in the novel.
Accordingly, given her being a member of Pierre’s family, and living with
them in Morocco, Virginia manages to know many things about the French
colonisers and their relationship with the natives. In most chapters of the novel,
Virginia tries to present the postcolonial condition of both the coloniser and the
colonised after independence in North Africa. Yet, regardless of her attempts
to be neutral in narrating this postcolonial condition she is experiencing there,
Virginia is found entangled in supporting and even naturalising the French
colonisation of Morocco and Algiers. She does so, first, by dramatising the
‘loss’ and ‘misfortune’ of the French after they were kicked out from the
colonised lands, instead of expressing sympathy with the victimised natives.
Second, she represents the colonised lands, especially Morocco, as living in a
state of “chaos” and “political instability” after the departure of the coloniser,
implying that the natives are still not mature enough to rule themselves.
By and large, the first sentence the novel starts with is the “death” of
Pierre’s grandmother, Emilia. At the very beginning, Virginia thinks that she
has died of an old age, but subsequently, she discovers that she has committed
suicide because of her sense of frustration and disappointment, after she has
lost all her amassed fortune during the battle of Algiers. In this battle, many
French settlers are kicked out from Algiers empty-handed. Being unable to
grasp the loss of Algiers, Emilia tells to Virginia:

I miss the old fishing boats that had sails instead of noisy
motors, the old farms that the young people have abandoned
for the cities. I miss Algiers. … The French opened up the
colony in Algeria to everyone so my parents immigrated to
Algiers, the capital … a vast fortune … I miss Algiers.
(N.M.M pp.11-12)

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 Such expression of regret to lose Algiers explains the materialistic and
greedy nature of the coloniser, who still hankers for exploiting the natives
more and more. The French do not think about anything but their fortunes.
Like the case of Emilia, They can even commit suicide for losing something
that is originally not their own. The irony is that the French claim that they
come to the colonies in order to “protect” and “civilise” the natives. For
instance, Emilia has told Virginia that “the French had done so much there
(Algiers)… planted orange groves, cultivated farms, built hospitals, schools...”
(N.M.M p.20) But, Emilia has forgotten to tell her about what the French has
done to the culture of the natives and the atrocities committed against the
natives themselves. She regrets the loss of her fortune in Algiers, but not the
hundreds of the colonised people who were killed and dehumanized by her
country. Actually, this displays the Eurocentric and pragmatist side in the
coloniser’s mindset.
While narrating the story of Emilia, Virginia dramatises the loss and
misfortune of the French after independence, rather than criticising their unfair
presence and exploitation of the colonised people. Instead of describing
Algiers as being subject to exploitation and colonisation, Virginia refers to it as
being a fortune “that smiled to the French families”. This can be considered as
one way of naturalising and normalising the French colonisation and
exploitation of the natives.
Significantly, many French families, like Pierre’s one, feel regretful for the
independence of French colonies. Of course, they should be so since it is
thanks to the colonies that those families managed to amass “an enviable
fortune and created unparalleled lifestyle”! (N.M.M p.12) Pierre’s family is an
example of those families that have capitalised on the French presence in the
colonies to make out great fortune. After independence, they hate that day the
colonies got their independence. Expressing her disappointment about that,
Jean Paul, Pierre’s mother, tells to Virginia that “the worst has already
happened. And that was the fault of de Gaul … in Algeria.” (N.M.M p.136)
Sharing with her the same feeling of regret, Pierre adds: “that de Gaul was a

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son of a bitch to abandon the French colonies” (ibid). In reading such
disturbing attitudes, we can sense how the French families are parched to carry
on colonising and exploiting the natives.
Perhaps the worst of all that is the westerner’s proclivity to claim being
“open-minded”, “liberal”, “civilised “and “humanist”. How can they be so
while having that eager to “eat the natives alive”, to exploit them and to
subjugate them? How can one claim to be humanist and at the same time
felling sorry to give independence to a certain people. Instead of thinking to
compensate what they have done to the colonised people, Pierre’s family, as an
example of many French families, are reminiscing the colonial time, the time
of exploitation, suppression and dehumanisation.
Over and above, when natives fight back against colonisers, they are
condemned to be criminal and murderers. For example, telling Virginia about
how Christine’ father was “torn from limb to limb” during the Moroccan
independence movement in 1954, Pierre said:

“He was driving through the farmlands near the Reif

Mountains, very near our farm in Ouzzane, when a crow of
people descended from the hills and tore him an the other
Frenchman in the care to pieces. No one ever knew why.”
(N.M.M p. 141)

This passage is a dramatisation of the ‘innocence’ of Christine’s father, and a

condemnation of Moroccans’ act of ‘killing’. And what is more surprising is
Pierre’s claim that no one knows the reasons behind that attack. Moroccans are
represented as criminals and murders, instead of being represented as a people
who defend their land, their honour, and their dignity. Has someone to be
condemned, it is in fact the French who are forcefully taking the natives’ lands
and exploiting them in unimaginable ways. Hence, in silencing the natives’
right to defend themselves and to resist the coloniser, Virginia becomes
involved in hiding the real image of the French colonisers who committed
physical as well as cultural atrocities against the natives, trying to normalise
the French colonisation.

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 So far we have tried to describe the impact of the French colonies’
independence on some French families; and how Virginia, as an American
character and narrator, showed her sympathy to the ‘French’ loss and
misfortune after independence, instead of doing so with the colonised people.
Now we will move to elucidate how Virginia again tries to justify French
colonialism by means of portraying the Moroccan postcolonial space, as being
a corrupt and politically unstable one. I.e. Virginia tries to convey the idea that
Morocco is still immature enough to rule itself, and that it is still in need of
being under western protectorate.
In this line of reasoning, it can be argued that one of the features of the
colonial discourse is exemplified in terms of depicting colonised courtiers as
being fertile contexts of violence, despotism, corruption and political
instability. Such discourse is basically meant to justify the western intervention
in the name of ‘democracy’ of ‘civilising mission’. It is this same discourse
that Virginia tries to enunciate by representing Morocco, as being politically
unstable. Such instability is alluded to in the following dialogue between
Virginia, Pierre, and his mother:

“When was the Independence movement?”

“The Moroccans got their independence Movement in 1956.”
Pierre looked at my ashen face.” It was not a bloody
movement.”
“Except for the beheadings at the king’s palace” interjected
Jean Paul…
“But this bloodbath was between El Gloui, the pasha of
Marrakech, and the loyalists,” argued Pierre. (N.M.M p.142)

In the light of this dialogue, Morocco is depicted as a space of “bloodbath”,

and “violence” after independence, a space in which there is struggle for
political power. As far as political instability, Morocco, like all countries all
over the world, is no exception. What seems to be exceptional is to use such
political instability as an excuse to pave the way for colonial intervention under
the pretext of “civilising mission”; or to attempt to show the gap left in the
colonized countries after the departure of the coloniser.

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 For the sake of deepening the political instability in Moroccan, Virginia
devotes a whole long chapter to discuss in a fictional way the Coup d’Etat of
Skhirat during the birthday party of Hassan II. She dramatizes this event via
exposing in details some moments of this coup during which many people are
killed and injured. Such dramatisation of the situation is described by Virginia
as follows:
Those who ran through the front door of the palace were
instantly mowed down by machine gun fire. Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!
Others jumped out of the palace windows and ran towards the
royal gold course to meet the same fate. The shooting seemed
indiscriminate; even foreign diplomats died in the line of fire.
((N.M.M p.226)

Then she adds:

Pools of blood splattered the room, and dignitaries littered the

floor, sprawled in the pathetic positions only the dead assume.
((N.M.M p.229)

Such ‘bloody’ images that Virginia tries to portray are actually meant, first, to
show the absence of safety in third world countries, and, second, to show the
colonised countries in a ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’ state, in which the last
word is given to violence and massacres. Again, given that Morocco and many
other countries at that time are still new independent countries, it is highly
possible that Virginia, by representing these countries as politically unstable,
intends to expose the inability of colonised countries to rule themselves, and
thus being still in need of western ‘protection’ and ‘intervention’.
To recapitulate, Never Marry in Morocco tells a story of an American
woman who has tried to represent the postcolonial space of both the colonised
and the coloniser in Morocco and Algiers. And it is in her representation of
this space that she is found endorsing and sometimes justifying French
colonialism. I.e. she dramatizes the French’s ‘loss’ of colonies and at the same
time exposes the colonised’s space as being politically unstable, implying the
natives’ immaturity to rule themselves.

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2.2. On politics of surveillance
2.2.1 The Veiled web: On aesthetics of surveillance

Catherine Assaro’s The Veiled Web can be described as a novel of

surveillance par excellence. The main events of this novel are set in Morocco,
where the heroine, Lucia Del Mar, has an “out-of-place” experience. It is an
“out-of-place” experience because it expresses how Lucia has felt alienated,
and culturally shocked while living with Rashid’s family in Morocco. The
narrator tries via this experience of Lucia to introduce the western reader to a
very different space, where everything looks “unusual”, “traditional”,
“strange” and “spectacular” from what the westerners are familiar with. In
order to bring this different space into view, the narrator makes use of Lucia’s
surveillance/her visual experience there to represent that space.
Of great importance is that this very act of surveillance is one of the most
powerful strategies of imperial dominance, because:

it implies a viewer with an elevated vantage point, it suggests

the power to process and understand that which is seen, and it
objectifies and interpellates the colonized subject in a way that
fixes its identity in relation to the surveyor.144

This is to display the power of surveillance and how it functions as a means of

representation, fixity, and interpellation. By the act of surveillance, the
surveyor can exclude many things and include others, depending on his/her
subjectivity, and interests. Such politics of exclusion and inclusion take place
mainly in many imperialist accounts, in which writers try to focus on what is
‘exotic’, ‘primitive’, and ‘touristic’ in the ‘other’s’ culture. Displaying how the
colonizer’s eyes function while surveying, David Spurr states that

The eye remains mobile and selective, constantly filtering the

visible for the sign, for those gestures and objects that, when
transformed into the verbal or photographic image, can alone
have meaning for a western audience by entering a familiar

144
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London:
Routledge, 1999) 226.

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 web of signification. The journalist is literally on the lookout
for scenes that carry an already establishes interest for a
western audience, thus investing perception itself with the
mediating power of cultural difference. 145

In this, David shows that the eye of surveyor is oriented by what interests or
attracts him/her, and thus becoming a powerful means of rendering what is
surveyed as subject to the authority and backgrounds of the surveyors’ eye.
This also means that there is nothing innocent in the process of surveillance.
As far as The Veiled Web is concerned, it will be argued that Lucia’s gaze
is very selective and exclusive in terms of reporting to the reader all that looks
‘traditional’, ‘different’, and ‘exotic’ about Moroccan space. She can be
described as taking the position of what Marry Louis Pratt calls “Monarch-of-
all-what I-see”, which means that the observer reflects her/his authority over
the scene surveyed.146 In our analysis of Lucia’s surveillance, we will adopt
David Spurr’s paradigm of surveillance analysis, in which he studies three
main elements: landscape, interiors and bodies.
To begin with, when Lucia and Rashid have managed to escape from their
kidnappers in Italy, they have gone directly to Rashid’s home to hide there.
After a long sleep at Rashid’s house, she wakes up finding herself at a very
different place, she has never seen. The narrator describes here how she
perceived that new space:

She slid off the bed and went to the window, where
breezes ruffled the curtains. About fifteen feet below the
window, the ground rolled away in a gentle slope from the
base of the house. Beyond the open stretch of land outside,
groves of almond trees spread out across the valley. In the
distance, a minaret lifted above the forest, and beyond that, a
range of mountains soared into the sky […]
The lush scene was not what Lucia expected. She knew almost
nothing about North Africa, though, neither geography nor
culture. What recourse would she have if Rashid decided to
keep her here? She doubted it would be safe for her to walk

145
David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and
imperial Administration (United States of America: Duke University press, 1996) 21.
146
Marry Louis Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing, and Transculturation, (London: Routledge,
1992)201 – 208.

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 off alone into the countryside in such an isolated region.
(V.W. 73-74)

What is described here is a landscape surveyed by Lucia while looking from

her window. The first thing to be noticed is that this landscape is located in a
mountainous countryside, where there is no mention of signs of modernity or
civilization. All the elements described above such as valley, mountains, and
groves of almond trees belong to nature. By so doing, the writer depicts
Moroccan space a “deserted natural space” where means of civilization are
absent.
What is more, the above scene is associated with a sense of danger
describing it as being unsafe (e.g. She doubted it would be safe for her to walk
off alone into the countryside in such an isolated region). This sense of danger
is stressed upon by describing the region as being isolated and unsafe. In fact,
it is here where the narrator’s politics of selection and exclusion takes place.
Her focus is mainly addressed, not to the real Morocco with its big and modern
cities, but to an isolated, deserted region in Morocco. Thereby, for a foreign
reader, the whole Morocco is to be thought of as a deserted, unsafe space, and
this is of course the main image most orientalists try to convey about oriental
spaces.
Relevantly, the above landscape is aesthetisized, being represented as “a
lush scene”. To find such a scene in a North Africa country makes Lucia
puzzled and confused (e.g. The lush scene was not what Lucia expected),
because all what she expects to find in such places is desert and camels. Such
puzzlement reflects how westerners come to North Africa, bringing with them
many stereotypes they read about in novels or watch in movies. For
illustration, as an expression of her sense of surprise to see Morocco as a
beautiful place with pretty scenes, Lucia tells Rashid: “It is pretty here. It
surprises me. I had always imagined Africa as a desert.” In another passage,
she likens a Moroccan guy to “a camel”, as if there is no other animal to use
for metaphoric purposes, but a camel. Therefore, it can be argued that the

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above depiction of space and its people enhances the writer’s stereotypes about
Morocco and orient in general.
Additionally, the narrator represents some Moroccan houses in a very
primitive way, describing them as “earthen houses” “with arched doorways”,
“like geodes”, “featureless and unadorned”. This is stated clearly in the
following passage:
As they followed a cobbled lane, earthen houses
rose on either side like pale gold cliffs, leaving the sky a
strip of washed-out blue overhead. Arched doorways
showed at intervals, many painted blue, with white or
yellow borders. She saw few windows. The houses were
like geodes, those rocks that appeared featureless and
unadorned on the outside but when opened revealed a
sparkling beauty of crystals inside. (V.W. P. 157) Added
emphasis.

In this passage, it is noticed that the representation of the houses is highly

aesthetisized. For Marry Louis Pratt, there are three main conventions used by
observers to aestheticize landscape so as to create quantitative and qualitative
value for what is surveyed.147 The first convention is aesthesizing the
landscape, by means of which the sight is seen as a painted picture through
which the writer orders his description in terms of binary oppositions. This
convention is apparent in the above passage in terms of describing houses as
being both “featureless and unadorned on the outside” and “sparkling beauty
of crystals inside”. The second convention is the density of meaning by means
of which the observer uses adjectival modifiers to provide rich representation.
In the above passage, the emphasized adjectives (cobbled, earthed, pale,
unadorned, Arched, featureless, washed-out …) reflect how the narrator tries to
provide rich meaningful representations to all what is surveyed. The last
convention has to do with the fact that the observer holds a sense of mastery or
authority in her/his descriptions. That is, every thing is described from the
vantage point of the viewer. Therefore, it should be argued that the narrator’s

147
Indebted to: Marry Louis Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing, and Transculturation, (London:
Routledge, 1992) 204.

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surveillance is governed by her personal perception of things, trying to focus
on what interests her and western audience.
As far as interior representation, it is observed that the same above
conventions of Pratt are also used in the following surveillance of Rashid’s
household. I.e., the space is aestheticized, the meaning is dense, and what is
described is subject to the power of the surveyor. Such conventions are
highlighted throughout the following depiction of a Rashid’s house:

Designs in carved wood covered the ceiling, and a beautiful

chandelier hung there, made from many small pieces of
dangling crystals…the room had an aged quality, as if it was
an antique photograph.
She crossed the room to another doorway and drew aside its
curtain revealing a tilted foyer….Actually, ‘archway” was a
paltry word; it looked like the keyhole for a giant skeleton
key. The sides rose in marble pillars for eight feet, ending in
flat tops. Above them the arch curved out and around in a
semicircle, like horseshoe. Its highest point was at least
fourteen feet above the floor. Engraving framed the arch in
braided designs of flowers and vines.
She realized the “vines” were the calligraphic strokes of
Arabic writing.
Two small shapes ran past the doorway, their outlines
vague through its gauzy curtain. She went over, pulled aside
the curtains- and gasped.
Symmetry. Exquisite symmetry.
She faced a courtyard with a fountain in its center, water
bubbling in tiered bowls. (V.W P.61-63)

In such account about Rashid’s household, the reader gets bombarded with
different meticulous descriptions, images and sizes about the Moroccan/Arab
architecture. Thereby, the reader feels as if she/he is seeing those architectural
forms in reality. The power of description renders what is described as looking
real and lively for the reader. And this displays the power of surveillance in
terms of reporting one’s visual experience. Actually, this strategy of gazing or
surveillance is of great importance as far as the orientalist/colonialst discourse
is concerned. It is by means of which that the surveyor fixes and constructs the
reality of the other.

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 Put differently, what is surveyed above does not only construct
Moroccan/Arab architecture, but it does construct their culture, identity and
religion. Lucia’s depiction of Moroccan traditional architecture takes the
reader back many centuries to the time when Arabs were known by their
famous attractive architecture in Andalusia. This idea is made clear in this
passage:

Lucia had seen pictures of the Alhambra, a spectacular

palace. Rashid’s home echoed that architecture on a smaller,
more subdued scale, with its colonnades, arabesques,
vaulted halls, and horseshow arches. (V.W P.100)

In fact, this seems to be very important since it reminds us of Arabs’ victories

and their great civilization when they were ruling in Andalusia. However, it is
probably not this that the narrator intends to covey to the western reader.
Under western eyes, the above descriptions of architecture represent a sign of
racial/cultural/social and civilizational difference between the Occident and
the Orient. For them, such differences should be maintained in order to define
themselves in opposite to the non-westerners. Living in a very ‘modern’ age,
with different sophisticated means of life (imagine that the events of Asaro’s
novel are set in 2010), Western readers will conceive of the above descriptions
and images as signs of ‘otherness’, ‘primitivism’, and ‘backwardness’. In this
relevance, it should be argued that the above description of Rashid’s
household

is a synecdochic evocation of a social whole through the

representation of its parts, a familiar trope for representing
otherness by describing a single cultural aspect which appears
immensely significant as a key to the whole culture but which is
nonetheless a riddle or seemingly inexplicable event to the
reader.148

And it is this synecdochic representation of the household that entails politics

of selection and exclusion in the sense that the above example of household

148
David Richards, “Third Eye/Evil eye”, Masks of Difference, (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1994) 220.

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will be taken as a representative of the whole Moroccan culture, and thereby
‘othering’ the whole society.
Significantly enough, the last element which is subject to Lucia’s
surveillance is the depiction of human body. Many members of Rashid’s
family, women in particular, were subject to her gaze. It is due to her gender
that she is able to have access to women’s interior where she unveiled them to
western readers. She describes their dressing, their faces, and their hair. In the
following passage, Lucia describes both Rashid’s mother and his sister:

Like a great ship coming into port, an older woman with

silver streaked hair swept into the room, carrying a platter
heaped with pastries. Her silk robe, the deep blush color of
roses, swirled around her ankles. She had a plump, voluptuous
figure and unmistakable resemblance to Rashid
A younger woman came with her, the girl in the stripped
robe, bringing a try with teapot and cups. She was small,
about five foot two, with creamy skin and pretty face. The
whites of her eyes were beautifully clear, making her irises
look even darker and her eyes even bigger. (V.W. p. 131)

According to this passage, we can notice the meticulous description of the

body of Rashid’s mother and his sister, and how Lucia’s gaze captures the
details of their bodies in terms of their hair, skin, eyes, and size. Importantly,
describing the mother as “a great ship coming into port” implies the idea of
de-familiarizing the natives’ bodies. This also signifies how the orientalist
discourse tries to exoticize and deform everything that is non-western. The
image of the mother as a port is meant to convey the plumpness of the oriental
woman, and her lack of attraction in comparison to the ‘western woman’.
Not only women’s bodies that were subject to Lucia’s gaze, but Rachid’s
father as well. In this extract, Lucia meticulously describes Rashid’s father as
follows:

His face had an austere quality, all plans and angles, with a
jutting nose and deep set black eyes. White peppered his
heavy eyebrows and streaked most of the short black beard
that covered his lower face. He stood taller than Ahmad, taller
indeed than any one in the family except Rashid, with a lean,

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 almost gaunt build. A turban hid most of his hair, and his
robes hung loosely from his shoulders. He projected a sense
of aestheticism, one heightened by fierce strength of his
features. (V.W. p. 133)

In reading this passage, one feels that Lucia tries to project Rashid’s father
as an aesthetic picture to look at. She makes him subject to her gaze so that the
father becomes as an object of gaze. In describing the features of his face, Lucia
tries to dramatize his difference, and his distinctiveness from men she sees in
the west. And by describing him in his traditional clothes, she is trying to
present to us an image of a 'traditional’ and ‘backward’ oriental man.
According to what has been said above, we can conclude that A Veiled Web
is of course a novel of surveillance par excellence. Lucia is represented as “A
monarch- of all what I see” who has selectively managed to represent space in
terms of landscape, anterior, and human body. All that is represented is meant to
construct a kind of “imaginative geography” between the west and the east, the
goal of which is to display rigid differences between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’,
between ‘civilization’ and ‘non-civilization’, and between ‘development’ and
‘backwardness’.

2.2.1.1 Gendering space: The representation of Morocco as

a patriarchal space

In the process of space representation, space becomes a site/sight through

which many cultural, social constructs are communicated. In this sense, space
representation should not be viewed as being innocent or objective; rather it is
in the very process of representation that many social, cultural biases are
conveyed. This issue of space is, for instance, tackled mainly by feminists in
terms of the relationship between space and gender construction. In feminist
terms, space can be divided into a private space, which is associated with
women, and public space, associated with men. In relation to how space is a
patriarchal construct, Alison Blunt and Gillian Rose refer to Shirley Ardner
who argues that

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 The social map of patriarchy created “ground rules” for the
behaviour of men and women, and that the gender roles and
relations of patriarchy constructed some spaces as “feminine”
and others as “masculine” and thus allocated certain kinds of
(gendered) activities to a certain (gendered) places.149

In saying this, the writer lays emphasis on how gender differences are
inscribed in different spaces, resulting in having both “feminine space” and
“masculine space”. Where the former refers to those minimal institutions and
modes of activity that are possessed by mothers and their children, or the
domestic haven of feminine grace and charm, the latter stands for the public
realm of culture, politics, the economy, and the arena of aggressive masculine
competition.150 As indicated by Chandra Mohanty, western feminism tends to
dissociate their societies from having such above space divisions, focusing on
“third world” countries as being real examples of the dramatisation of those
patriarchal divisions of space.151
In this respect, it is our primary goal in this section to delineate how Assaro
in The Veiled Web represents Morocco as a space which dramatises patriarchy.
Throughout the experience of Lucia with Rashid’s family, the writer lays bare
how Moroccan space is “patriarchally” constructed. In Rashid’s house, Lucia is
represented as being astonished to see a large house, made of more than twenty
rooms, in which women outnumber men. The thought that comes to her mind
is that Rashid’s house is one of those “harem interiors” she read about in
novels or watches in movies, where women are imprisoned and secluded from
the outside world. In saying this, Lucia stereotypes Morocco as a patriarchal
society, with extended families, and harems. Bearing in mind the time in which
the events of the (futuristic) novel are taking place (i.e. 2010), it should be
argued that it aims to prolong the same orientalist discourse which seeks to

149
Allison, B. and Gillian, R. “Introduction: Women’s Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies,”
Writing Women and Space: Colonial and Postcolonial Geographie (London: The Guilford Press,
1994), 1.
150
Alison and Gillian 2-2.
151
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and colonial discourses”.
Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman.
Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.

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encode “oriental countries” as being “stable”, “unchangeable” and
“traditional”.
Furthermore, to lay emphasis on the fact that Morocco is a patriarchal space
par excellence, Lucia describes her sense of disillusionment to see how
Rashid’s family is divided into two groups while having a meal:

“After their introductions, they settled down to eat

their meal. The men sat at the table nearest the door, and the
women and children took the other two”. (V.W p. 136).

Such an image can be described as an iconic one by means of which

Morocco is represented as a typical patriarchal space. After that, the narrator
describes how Lucia feels toward what she sees in Rashid’s home as follows:

For all what they went out of their way to make her
welcome, though, she still felt separated, as if she occupied a
bubble. Everything seemed defined by space: men here,
women there, together, yet separate. The house itself made a
space, enclosing them within its walls. The world outside was
another space, one she sensed belonged more to men than
women. (V.W p. 139).

In this passage, space is represented as being patriarchally gendered, in which

men’s space is separated from women’s one. Indeed, it is throughout this
space division that the Lucia describes women’s space as one of “enclosure”,
“separation”, and “imprisonment”. I.e., Moroccan women are conceived of as
being subject to subjugation in a male dominated space. As a matter of fact,
such representation of Moroccan women is Eurocentric and biased, and
displays western conspiracy against oriental countries. The orientalist
discourse is usually trying to depict the “other” in a negative way so as to
show the “superiority “of the west over third world countries. Likewise, that
Lucia is described as being “separated, as if she occupies a bubble” in
Rashid’s house is meant to describe her as feeling unable to be secluded, or
live as Moroccan women do. By this, the narrator tries to convey the idea of

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how western women, unlike oriental women, can not live in seclusion or
imprisonment.
Never the less, given the fact that Morocco is a Muslim country, it should
be argued that separation between men and women can sometimes be out of
religious necessity, and does not mean the subjugation of women. In saying
this, it should be argued that one’s religious or cultural differences should not
be taken as signs of ‘inferiority’ or ‘superiority’. Rather, there should be
respect to such differences as they are what identify some people as different
from another. Yet, due to some westerners’ Eurocentric propensity, they tend
to regard those who are different from them as being “backward”,
“underdeveloped”, and in need to adopt western model of life.
To conclude, taking into consideration what have been said above, we can
argue that The veiled web tries to emphasise the idea that Morocco is a
patriarchal society via representing its space as being patriarchally divided
between men and women. In doing so, Catherine Assaro contributes to
enhancing and dramatising western stereotypes about the orient, especially the
ones which regard women in ‘third world countries’ as being subjugated under
the patriarchal system.

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3. The (mis)representation of race

After tackling both how gender and space are (mis)represented in the three
novels in question, now turn will be directed to the last concept which is about
‘race’. Like the above two concepts, race is also of great significance in the
orientalist discourse, being in fact one of its chief driving forces in terms that it
is on the premise of race that the orientalist perceives of himself/herself as
being superior than other races. The significance of ‘race’ lies in its myth of
racial differences, which has been continually supported by western pseudo-
scientific theories so as to prove that difference in terms of ‘race’ or skin color
results also in having civilizational, social, and intellectual differences between
races.
In this section, the notion of race will be delved into in the light of the three
novels in question from different perspectives. In Never Marry in Morocco, we
will try to see how the sense of race superiority results in racism and
exploitation. In Lord of the Desert, we will explore how race can also be used
as a pretext to pretend civilizing and modernizing the natives, while it is in fact
just one way of primitivising the natives. Finally, in The Veiled Web, there will
be an attempt to display how racial differences are made use of to construct
cultural, civlisational and social differences between the West and the East
and, thus, between ‘civilization’ and ‘non-civilization’.

3.1 Never Marry in Morocco: The politics of race

It[ colour prejudice] is nothing more than the unreasoning

hatred of one race for another the contempt of the stronger and
richer peoples for those who are kept in subjection and are so
frequently insulted. As colour is the most obvious outward
manifestations of race it has been made the criterion by which
men are judged, irrespective their social or educational
attainments. The light-skinned races have come to despise all
those of a darker colour, and at the dark-skinned peoples who
will no longer accept without protest the inferior position to
which they have been relegated.152 (Sir Alan Burns)

152
Cited in: Frant Fanon, Black Skins White Masks. 1952. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York :
Grove Press, 1967)118.

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 Racial stereotyping has fundamentally contributed to justifying colonial
practices and pretexts. Condemning a certain race to be ‘inferior’, ‘primitive’,
and ‘uncivilized’ is one way to justify colonization and exploitation of that
race. Race has been used as a colonial construct to differentiate between a
‘civilized’ race and ‘uncivilized’ one. This section will be an attempt to
disclose some of these politics of ‘race prejudice’ in Virginia Dale’s Never
Marry in Morocco.
This novel, which can be described as a racist one par excellence, brings
into light many aspects of racist discourses against Arabs in general and
Moroccans in particular. It reiterates the same race prejudice constructed about
Arabs since long time. Arabs are represented as an ‘inferior’, ‘filthy’, and
‘defeated’ race. More than that, Never Marry in Morocco articulates a double
racist discourse both from without and from within. I.e. it represents the racist
discourse both of American and Europeans towards Arabs, and at the same
tries to capitalize on the ‘Myth of Berber’ to divide between Arabs and Berbers
in Morocco, following the same French colonial recipe of “Divide and rule”.
As far as the American racist discourse is concerned, it is exemplified in
terms of how Arabs are perceived of by Virginia, the narrator/heroine of the
novel, and her parents. For illustration, when Pierre offers Virginia a gift to
give it to her parents, she abstains from accepting the gift because it is a
painting of ‘a dark-skinned Arab’. Commenting on this painting, Virginia says:

The Painting was of a dark-skinned Arab, but the brown tones

the artist had chosen were luminous. The portrait was
magnificent. I knew it was very valuable. Then I thought of my
parents narrow-mindedness, their racist attitude. I shook my
head. (N.M.M. 71)

Then, trying to explain to Pierre that her parents will not accept such a gift,
Virginia tells Pierre:

“They will just see a picture of a dark Arab and sneer at

the colour of his skin. They would never hang a picture
like that in their homes.” (N.M.M71)

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Such depictions of Arabs are indeed revealing on many levels. First, Arabs are
stereotyped on the basis of colour, which is used as a trope of difference
between westerner and Arabs. The latter are represented with dark skin or
brown colour in order to make difference between the “white civilized” race
and the “non-civilized black race”. Along history, though most Arabs are not
black, the western orientalist/colonial discourse capitalizes on this trope of
colour to exoticize and “other” Arabs. In other words, the colonial discourse
always seeks to set a kind of “imaginative geography”, to use Edward Said’s
phrase, between the “I” and the “other” irrespective of what reality is, thus
using colour or race to create that ‘imaginative geography’.
Second, the above representation of Arabs reveal about how Americans,
incarnated by Virginia’s parents, are racist to the core. Virginia’s explanation
why her parents will reject Pierre’s gift reveals this fact. Of course such
American racism can be traced back to Hollywood’s bombardment of the
American audience with racist movies which do demonize and vilify Arabs in
unimaginable way.153 Last but not least, the act of painting Arabs is by itself a
form of orientalist discourse which aims to fix a negative image about Arabs as
a whole throughout time and space.
More importantly, in depicting those racist discourses, Virginia, the
narrator, tries to appear as not being racist, like her parents. She does so by
showing her reservations about her parents’ racist and narrow-minded way of
thinking. Still, in a number of occasions, Virginia expresses very Eurocentric
and racist attitudes towards the natives because of her sense of race complex.
She considers the American race as a superior one. For instance, when she
goes with Pierre to Club Equestre in Rabat, they are surprised by the coming of
the king Hassan II. Pierre, since he is familiar with Morocco and its mores, has
hastily asked Virginia to bow to the king if he comes in their way. Egoistically,
she answers him: “Wait a minute! I am an American citizen! I don’t have to
bow!”(N.M.M. p. 74) This statement is very telling in the sense that it reveals

153
For more details about this issue of Hollywood representation of Arabs, see: Jack G. Shaheen, Reel
Bad Arabs: how Hollywood Vilifies a people, (New York : Olive Branch Press, 2001).

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about Virginia’s race complex. It also tells about the ascendancy of United
Sates as a powerful country, which is apparent in Virginia’s sense of pride to
be an American citizen.
Similarly, Virginia’s racist discourse manifests in her repeatedly
representation of Moroccans as shabby beggars decorating the doors of old
medina and the streets of Rabat. The image she represents about Morocco is
that one of poverty and destitution. Such representation of Morocco in fact is
meant to draw a dividing line between her ‘developed’ country and the rest of
‘third world’ countries. For instance, commenting on begging phenomenon in
Morocco, Virginia says that: “I had never seen anything like this in the
prosperous sixties on the united states”. (N.M.M. p.134) In saying this,
Virginia celebrates the ‘superiority’ of her country in comparison to the
‘inferiority’ and ‘backwardness’ of Moroccans, and ‘third world’ countries in
general.
So far, we have discussed some aspects of American racist attitudes
towards Arabs, and Moroccans in particular. Similar to those attitudes is the
ones hold by the French colonizers, represented in the novel by Pierre’s family,
towards Arabs. Pierre’s mother, Jean Paul, is the most racist character in the
novel. In one passage, trying to warn Virginia from Arabs, Jean Paul tells her:
“these people are relentless! You must beware of them”; then she adds: “sal
race! The Arabs are the filthy race. The scourge of earth.” (N.M.M. p.80)
In fact such extreme racist attitudes are heavily unbearable to be heard from a
people who claim ‘civilization’ and ‘humanism’. Has there any one to be
described in that racist way, it is the European colonizer who exploit and
subjugate the colonized people. Jean Paul, herself, and her husband are an
instance of French ex-settlers who have made a great fortune out of the
colonies, by means of subjugation and exploitation of the colonised. Thus, who
should normally be called “The scourge of earth', the coloniser or the
colonised? The question needs no answer.
In examining the above racist statement of Jean Paul, we notice how she
uses a declarative sentence in the present tense (The Arabs are the filthy

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race.) in order to condemn the whole Arab race through time and space. The
statement is generalising and all-inclusive, making of the whole Arab race in
the past, at the present and in the future a ‘filthy race’. As far as such use of
these timeless colonial statements or figures of speech, Edward Said argues
that

They are all declarative and self evident; the tense they
employ is the timeless eternal; they convey an impression of
repetition and strength; they are always symmetrical to, and
yet diametrically inferior to, European equivalent, which is
sometimes specifies, sometimes not. For all these functions it
is frequently enough to use the simple copula is.154

Hence, the very use of simple present tense in orientalist discourse is a very
significant figure of speech used to fix the colonised in a timeless and
unchangeable image.
More Importantly, Never Marry in Morocco capitalises on the Arab-
Israel conflict to enhance the ‘inferiority’ and ‘defeatism’ of Arabs. It records
the six-day war between Arabs and Israel, describing how Arabs have been
‘easily’ and ‘shamefully’ defeated in that war. The main characters in the novel
are represented as happy and proud of the Israeli victory. The Jews are
represented as ‘victorious’ and ‘defenders’ of their right to exist, while Arabs
are ridiculed. This idea is clear in the following passage:

“All they [Arabs] left behind were their sandals” Jean Paul told
me in Spanish, so I [Virginia] could understand.” That’s all that
was left of the Egyptian army.” She chuckled at her sally … I later
learned that the Israeli has had counterattacked the Egyptian air
force while the planes were still on the ground, destroying their
capacity for air force while the planes were still on the ground …
they [Arabs] eventually run for it, taking refugee in Palestine, and
they did leave a sea of sandals which Paris March pictured on the
front cover of the magazine of the next month. (N.M.M. p.156)

In describing these events, there is no mention of the daily massacres and

inhuman practices committed against the Palestinians. All Israeli massacres
have been silenced; what is voiced out is the Israeli ‘right to exist’ and its

154
Said, Orientalism, 76.

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‘victory’ against Arabs. Indeed, such representations are amply enough to
reveal about the racist/colonial discourse conveyed against Arabs via Virginia
Dale’s novel. To add, those representations also disclose the conspiracy of the
west with Israel in the sense that it tries to justify the imperial and illegal
existence of Israel in Palestine. Such western support is not surprising since
most western countries themselves have grown up within an imperial/ colonial
milieu, a milieu which legitimises, justifies and endorses all forms of
colonialism and exploitation.
Last but not least, one of the most dangerous racist discourses the novel
articulates is the construction of a racist discourse among the natives
themselves. Following the same colonial recipe of “divide and rule’, Never
Marry in Morocco takes advantage of “Berber myth” to create a kind of
racism, which does not exist, among Arabs and Berbers. Such racist discourse
is fabricated by representing Amina as a Berber woman who hates Arabs. She
tells Virginia: “ I came from a good family. We are Berbers, not Arabs. We are
honourable people.” (N.M.M. p.162). Virginian, the narrator, strengthens such
racist discourse by commenting on Amina’s attitudes towards Arabs as
follows:

She seemed pleased with herself that week, singing little

chants in her native Berber language. Amina was proud of her
Berber heritage, as her people considered themselves better
than the Arabs- more honest, hard working, cleaner in spirit.
(N.M.M. p.163)

In fact, such scenario is fabricated for the sake of overemphasizing the

‘inferiority’ of Arabs, especially if we take into consideration the above racist
attitudes of Virginia, of her parent, and of Pierre’s family against Arabs. Such
capitalization on the ‘Berber’ myth is indeed one way of the colonial discourse
to divide among Arabs and Berber. The failure of such myth has been proved
by the unity of Arabs and Berber during the French colonization of Morocco
and their unity against the French’s attempts to divide them. Hence, Never
Marry in Morocco’s representation of racist discourse among Moroccans

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themselves displays its colonial discourse which attempts to revive the
French’s recipe of ‘divide and rule’.
In the light of what has been said above, it comes into view how Virginia
Dale’s novel makes use of politics of ‘race’ to articulate racist discourses
against Arabs both from within and from without. The racist discourse from
without is concretised in Americans and Europeans’ attitudes towards Arabs,
and from within in terms of trying to create a kind of ‘racism’ among the
Berber and Arabs in Morocco.

3.2 Lord of the Desert: Eurocentrism and the discourse of

‘primitivisation’/ ‘modernization’

The question of race is of paramount importance in the very construction of

a colonialist/orientalist discourse, in the sense that most westerners rely on the
premise of ‘race’ to pronounce their ‘superiority’ and the ‘inferiority’ of non-
westerners. And this is why it is found that most orientalist writers take it for
granted that their race, culture, and civilization are the prototype to be adopted
by other non-western societies. And such Eurocentric tendencies are actually
exemplified in many western orientalist writings in which there is a call for
‘civilizing’ and ‘modernizing’ the natives. In an attempt to unveil some of
those Eurocentric tendencies, this section will try to display how Diana
Palmer’ s Lord of the Desert does produce a discourse of ‘modernizing’ and
‘civilizing’ the natives.
Throughout the main events of the novel, the narrator makes it clear to the
reader that both Morocco and Qawi, in particular, are two examples of Arab
Muslim countries which are either in a ‘primitive’ state or in the process of
modernizing themselves. Most of the settings of both countries are
primitivized, exoticized, and reduced to spaces fraught with desert, camel,
palm trees, and ancient or medieval monuments. That is, in terms of
representation, the writer is very selective focusing only on what is touristic,
medieval, and exceptional. For instance, in their stay in Tangier, Gretchen and
Philippe are represented visiting some very ancient patrimonies, such as the

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old medina, the Kasbah, the palace of Raissouli, and the grotto of Hercules in
Tangier. All such settings are meant to bombard western readers with ‘exotic’
and extraordinary images about the orient in order to satisfy their eagerness for
oriental ‘exoticism’ and fantasy. In doing so, such countries are represented as
being ‘backward’, ‘primitive’, and ‘underdeveloped’, being in need of
‘modernization’.
For more illustration, the fact that Gretchen is asked for to be the personal
assistant to the ruling Sheik of Qawi, in order to “assume responsibility for
public relations, court functions and the organization of the household duties”,
is very revealing. This represents Arab governments as being dependent on the
west to provide them with officials and experts to help them recover from their
backwardness. The backwardness of the “third world” countries is emphasized
by the sheik Philippe himself when he proudly tells Gretchen that “I was
educated in Europe” and that “one matures in a sophisticated environment”,
implying that Europe is the place of civilization and knowledge. (L.D. p. 88).
Similarly, while informing Gretchen about the nature of his society, the sheik
Philippe says that in his country:

“many modern conveniences don’t exist there, and even

electricity is a recent addition. The people of Qawi were
largely nomadic until the early part of this century […] it
would require a great dale of tolerance for you to deal with
such archaic surroundings.” (L.D. p. 91)

In examining this passage, it becomes visible that the natives are

represented as ‘primitive’ in terms of representing them as nomadic, archaic,
and lacking modernity. What is troubling with such descriptions is that these
images of Arab countries are represented in an age where people have planes,
limousines, cars, and other different modern means of life. Still, there is a kind
of ambivalence in terms of representing these Arab countries. For instance, the
narrator sometimes describes the sheik of Qawi as driving limousines and
having his personal planes to move from one place to another, while in other
cases the sheik is described as riding his stallion to fight against his enemies.

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Modern and sophisticated means are put side by side with primitive, traditional
means. Such ambivalence can be read as a desire of the writer to create a
model like the western one, especially in the case of the sheik who is supposed
to get married with a western woman; yet, at the same time, to emphasize the
backwardness and primitivism of such countries in comparison to western
ones.
Significantly enough, one of the primary goals of the orientslist/colonial
discourses is not only to primitivise the natives, but to put on show that the
cure for such primitivism and backwardness resides in the western hands. In
such ways, westerners give legitimacy to their intervention in “modernizing”
and “civilizing” the natives. This is actually the same scenario that takes places
in Lord of the Desert. Gretchen, in this novel, is a representative of the west,
who is assigned the responsibility of the “civilizing mission”. She is
represented as the woman who brings out miracles. As discussed in one
previous sections concerning the allegory of ‘impotence’ and how Gretchen
was able to save the Sheik of Qawi from his sexual impotence, she is also
represented here as being an American “emissary”, who comes to an Arab
Muslim country to save them from their economic and social impotence.
In order to exhibit that the sheik’s country as a primitive one, Gretchen
tells to Philippe: “you said that your country was still rather…primitive” (L.D.
p. 144). And Philippe replies: “compared to yours, certainly. But I have great
plans for my people, for new educational facilities and modern hospitals and
industry.” (ibid) In such a brief dialogue, Gretchen feels a sense of superiority
and the Sheik of Qawi is made to feel a sense of inferiority in comparison to
Gretchen’s country. Therefore, the relationship between the two parts is taken
for granted that it is unequal, and that one is in need of the other for the sake of
development. By doing so, the ground is set for Gretchen to intervene in
“modernizing” the Sheik’s country.
Having said that, we will try now to trace some of aspects of the discourse
of modernization in Palmer’s novel. As will be made clear in the following
extract, Gretchen is represented as performing the white (wo)man’s burden. So

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it is worth to cite the following extract in length in order to show how Gretchen
is represented as performing “modernizing” as well as “civilizing” mission:

A week went by very quickly while Gretchen

learned her way around the enormous palace and got to
know the people who served in it. She felt sorry for the
poor servants who had to wash down the walls. They
used bleach, and it made their hands raw. She
complained about this to Philippe, who provided them
with rubber gloves. She found one of the women in the
kitchen barely able to stand, sick with some female
problems, and this problem, too, she insisted on
addressing. A doctor was sent for and the woman was
treated and given sick leave.
……….
Nor did she stop at the household. She found
children playing in the dirt with sticks. There were no
toys, and there was no place to play. […] they played
outside in the dirt, because there was no other facility.
She went back to Philippe, and asked for a proper fence
playground and a supervisor to watch them while their
mothers worked. A kindergarten, she added, was going to
be a necessity, and it must have a capable educator to run
it.
Philippe agreed, all but shell-shocked at the
change in her since her arrival. She seemed to be
everywhere, watching, listening, learning. She saw things
that needed changing and went right to work changing
them. (L.D p. 202-203)

This extract is indeed “expressive”, needing no more elaboration as far as the

Eurocentric discourse of ‘modernization’ is concerned. That Gretchen has
come to ‘modernize’ the natives is self-evident in the above passage. Most
tropes of colonial discourse are present in that passage. There is discourse of
primitivisation (e.g. the lack of day care facilities and kindergarten), the
discourse of defilement (e.g. children playing in the dirt with sticks), the
discourse of derision (e.g. She felt sorry for the poor servants who had to wash
down the walls. They used bleach, and it made their hands raw), and the
discourse western modernization (e.g. shell-shocked at the change in her since
her arrival; She saw things that needed changing and went right to work
changing them). What is more, the writer represents all members of the

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household as being happy for what Gretchen has done for them. And when
Leila tells Gretchen that the “the household loves you”, Gretchen replies that “I
felt I must do something for them”. Such discourse of duty is in fact as old as
colonial discourse since most colonizing powers have been claiming a sense of
duty towards the natives. Thus, Gretchen is repeating here that same colonial
discourse.
Never the less, there is something new and different with such discourses of
modernization in these popular romances. The new is that such romances can
be described as a kind of propaganda to United States’s imperial drives.
Throughout the novel, Gretchen keeps reminding the sheikh of the power of
F.B.I. in which her brother is an important official, and the role of United
States in helping Middle Eastern countries in the process of development.
Philippe also explains to her that “considering the extent of our newfound oil
reserves” (L.D p. 339), his country has a prestigious relation with United
States. In fact, this shows that it is the greediness of United States for having
more diplomatic relations with oil producing countries that directs its
diplomatic relation with Middle Eastern countries.
To conclude, it is significant to say that Lord of Desert is a novel which
keeps repeating the same imperial discourse, which is based mostly on
discourses of “primitivisation”, “modernization” and “civilizing mission”.
What is different with such discourse in popular romance is that it is the
‘western woman’, rather that the ‘western man’, who is represented as a
‘modernizing’ and ‘civilizing agen’.

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3.3 The Veiled Web: the construction of cultural/racial differences

Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological

and epistemological distinction made between “the orient”
and the (most of the time) the “occident”.155 (Edward Said)

Within the colonial frame of thought, racial differences necessarily imply

cultural, civilizational as well as social differences. In their colonial literatures,
some western writers tend to emphasize their difference throughout stressing
their racial, cultural, and civilizational difference from the non-western races.
In effect, one of the main manifestations of the colonial discourse appears in its
tendency to construct rigid cultural differences between the ‘I’ and the ‘other’,
since such construction of differences is meant to differentiate between the ‘I’
and the ‘other’, and thus between ‘civilization’ and ‘non-civilization’. In this
respect, the primary goal of this section is to delineate how Assaro’s A veiled
web, as an orientalist text, constructs like those differences between the west
and Islam and between western culture and Moroccan culture in order to
expose the ‘superiority’ of the former over the latter.
Before moving to the analysis of our text in question, it seems important to
highlight how the construction of cultural differences, as a form of orientalist
discourse, is used to emphasize the superiority and authority of the ‘west’ over
the ‘rest’. Homi Bhabha is amongst the first ones to call our attention to the
difference between cultural difference and cultural diversity, arguing that the
former is used a means of enunciating the west’s ‘superiority’ and authority
over the non-westerners. Bhabha argues that

Cultural diversity is an epistemological object – culture as an

object of empirical knowledge- whereas cultural difference is
the process of enunciation of culture as ‘knowledgeable’,
authoritative adequate to the construction of systems of
cultural identification. If cultural diversity is a category of
comparative ethics, aesthetics or ethnology, cultural difference
is a process of signification through which statements of
culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate and authorize

155
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin 1978), 3.

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 the production of fields of force reference, applicability, and
capacity.156

In examining this difference between cultural difference and cultural

diversity, it appears that the problem does not lie in cultural diversity, but in the
enunciation of cultural difference, since the latter, as Bhabha says, “focuses on
the problem of the of the ambivalence of cultural authority: the attempt to
dominate in the name of a cultural supremacy which is itself produced only in
the moment of differentiation”157. That is, it is via the authority of cultural
difference that domination of the ‘other’ takes place. On the basis of cultural
difference, the west holds Eurocentric attitudes towards non-western races that
are considered to be racially and culturally different from westerners. Hence, it
is through emphasizing cultural differences that one claims a sense of
“authority” and “superiority”.
Accordingly, in our analysis of Catherine Assaro’s The veiled web, we
shall try to detect how this novel enunciates and stresses some cultural, racial,
and civilizational differences between the west and East/Islam for the sake of
stressing the ‘superiority’ of the former and the ‘inferiority’ of that latter.
Actually, while reading the novel, the writer tries to envision a possible world
in which there might be more possibility of communication and tolerance
between different cultures and civilizations, especially between the west and
Islam. By so doing, the novel takes the challenge of the conflict between the
west and Islam, trying to portray to what extent there might be a kind of
reconciliation between the two worlds. This conflict is incarnated mainly
through the love relationship between the two allegorical characters: Lucia
Del Mar, who represents the western culture and Christianity, and Rashid
Alajazeeri, who represents Islam and Moroccan culture.
Given that the two lovers belong to two different cultures and religions,
they have faced the challenge of how to reconcile their differences. To save
their love relationship, Rashid insists that the solution to their conflicts resides

156
Homi Bhabha, “The commitment to Theory”, The Location of Culture. (New York: Routledge,
1994). 34
157
Bhabha 34.

125
in what he calls “the Crossroads”. I.e. Rashid explains to Lucia that religions
and cultures are like roads which come from different directions and meet in
“a place of light” and “pure air”, “a place with no hate, no war, no bombs, no
prejudice, no violence. A place of acceptance. Of peace.”(V.W. p. 171.). Then
he adds that “if not even one man and one woman can reach the crossroads,
how can the peoples of entire world do”. Such ideas, at least in theory, are
indeed enlightening and very optimistic in terms of reconciling differences
between peoples and individuals. Yet, the problem lies in how such ideas can
be put into practice, especially if one part insists on his or her superiority over
the “other”?
In this regard, throughout the events of the novel, it comes into view that
both Lucia and Rashid failed by the end of the novel to reconcile their
differences though they believe in the idea of “the crossroad”. This failure is
mainly ascribed to the fact that each one of them wants to stick to his/her
religion and culture. Still, what seems to be eurocentric in the novel is the
writer’s tendency to attribute the failure of the two character’s relationship to
Islamic and Moroccan cultural practices. That is, throughout her experience
with Rashid’s family in Morocco, Lucia is represented as being unable to get
along with Rashid’s family, his culture, and his religion. Rashid and Lucia are
represented as living in two very “different” worlds; yet, it is Rashid’s world
which is put under question, by representing it as being ‘traditional’,
sometimes ‘primitive’, and ‘irreconcilable’.
In effect, such differences are embodied in the experience of Lucia in
Rashid’s house with his family. As it is apparent in the novel, we find that all
what is represented about Rashid’s culture and family is determined by the
writer’s stereotypes and biases. That is, we can notice that representation in
general is not innocent, but very biased and selective. In this sense, Lucia, for
instance, is represented in a very traditional earthen house, designed in
“carved wood”, with “horseshoe arches” everywhere, “long pillar”, and “large
decorated doors”, to name but a few. These descriptions deny the fact that
there are any modern or well-sophisticated houses in Morocco. Morocco will

126
be perceived of as a very traditional, if not a ‘primitive space’. And it is herein
where the power of the orientalist reductive discourse resides.
Also, those descriptions can remind the western reader of that Arabesque
architecture the Arabs used to design when they were in Andalusia. But, what
is at stake with this image is that it conveys the stability of Arabs and their
sticking to the past. For orientalists, the orient is timeless and stable, and it is
this idea of timelessness that the narrator tries to convey by representing
Rashid’s house as being very traditional. In seeing such house, Lucia says to
Rashid that she can not live with him in his house. Thus, Lucia’s refusal to
live in Rashid’s house implies that what they have in the west is very different
and developed than what she sees at Rashid’s house.
This idea is more emphasized by describing Rashid’s house as having “few
windows”, having “no chairs” or “beds”, but “only divans and cushions”. In
saying this, the writer dramatizes the difference between the western houses
and the Moroccan ones so that the western ones will appear as being more
developed and modern than the ones in Morocco. While describing how Lucia
finds Rashid’s house, the narrator says that

A low black-lacquered table stood by Tamou, and brocaded

divans lined the walls, their gold gleaming. Although Lucia
saw no bed, she realized the divans could serve the purpose.
At first she wondered why Rashid had European style bed
in his room. Then it occurred to her he might not fit on a
divan. Large by any standard, he was huge for a Moroccan.
(Added emphasis). (V.W. 96)

The last sentence in this passage is indeed very disturbing in terms that it
shows about the narrator’s Eurocentric and biased discourse. That Rashid
adopts western style of life makes of him a different modern person in
comparison to other Moroccans. The bed is given as an example of western
modernity while the divan is an example of primitivism and tradition. In doing
so, the above passage tries to construct a kind of difference between the west
and the east, a difference between ‘civilization’ and ‘backwardness’.

127
 Likewise, the above passage depicts Rashid as being a modern man, who is
different from all Moroccans, “by any standard”. Actually, it is noticed that in
most desert romances, the heroes are represented either as being hybrid or as
being westernized so that they can be accepted by western audience. In
Rashid’s case, he is represented as being westernized; he differs from the rest
of Moroccans by his European style. Lucia describes him as being “a
confusing mix of cultures, modern and traditional, west and East”.( P.68) For
westerner, a white heroine can not be engaged in love with a pure traditional
Arab, and this is why most romance writers try to focus on either “a hybrid” or
“westernized” Arab heroes. By such way of thinking, we can understand the
racist and Eurocentric attitudes of westerners towards Arabs in general.
Another example of deepening cultural differences between the west and
the East manifests in representing Rashid’s family as an extended one, while
Lucia’s one as a nucleus one. And given the western Eurocentric thinking, the
nucleus family is supposed to be the role model, while the extended one is to
be associated with traditional and primitive societies. For instance, Lucia is
represented as having only one sister, whereas Rashid having “four brothers”
and “five sisters”. These two families models are in fact meant to reveal about
the difference that exists between westerners and Arabs. In this respect, the
problem with this discourse of representation is that it uses Rashid’s case as an
allegorical example to represent all Moroccans and Arab families as being
extended families, which is to a large extent erroneous.
Importantly, Lucia represents Rashid’s house as a patriarchal one par
excellence. She, for instance, describes how space is divided between men and
women during eating, and it is Rashid’s father who represents the patriarch
authority in the house. Rashid’s father is described as follows:

Abdullah presided at the men’s table, his authority all the

more impressive in that he almost nothing. He listened to his
sons, nephews, cousins, and grandsons, asked as question
here, prompted a response there … his awareness included the
whole room, encompassing his entire family. (V.W. 138-
139)

128
Such description is amply enough to understand how Rashid’s family is
represented as a gendered and patriarchal family. Thus, as it is the case with
all orientalist discourses, most western writers tend to associate all “third
world” societies with patriarchy as a sign of their backwardness so that
western societies will appear as more liberal and un-patriarchal. However, it
will not be denied that patriarchy is a universal phenomenon which can be
found in the West as well as in the East. In brief, the above cultural
differences which are represented about Moroccan culture are essentially
meant to construct rigid differences between the west and the east, which will
allow the representation of the former as ‘superior’ and ‘modern’ , while the
latter as “inferior”, “backward”, and “underdeveloped”.
As far as Islam is concerned, The Veiled Web can be described as an
‘informative’ novel which informs western readers about many Islamic cues,
practices and beliefs. It is in this process of representing Islam that the novel
works to ‘exoticize’, ‘other’ and de-familiarize it by means of representing it
as very ‘strange’, ‘different’ and ‘oppressive’. Throughout the novel, Rashid,
who is represented as a pious Muslim, keeps informing Lucia about many
Islamic practices such as about zakat, praying, pilgrimage, and fasting, to
name but a few. All these Islamic practices are represented as being very
strange, unfamiliar, and sometimes “oppressive”, as in the case of the wearing
the veil. For Lucia, the veil is a means to seclude and subjugate women in
Islam. But for her, wearing the cross is part and parcel of her religion, which
she can not take off. Herein, the cross and the veil are two religious practices,
which should be respected; yet, Lucia’s narrow-mindedness towards the veil
reveals about her eurocentrism. To sum up, the novel is replete with different
forms of misrepresentations of Islam, but because of time and space
limitations, we will not be able to cover all of them.
What this section in brief has intended to do is to expose some examples of
how Assaro’s novel has managed, via presenting some cultural and religious
differences between the west and East (represented via Morocco), to enunciate
the ‘superiority’, ‘modernity’, and ‘development’ of the ‘west’ over the

129
‘East/Islam’. And in so doing, it is also the myth of “racial differences”
between westerners and Arabs that is being played out. Hence, of no doubt is
that A veiled Web is a novel which carries on the mission of constructing
western, imperial, racist, and biased attitudes about Arabs.

130
Conclusion:

To the extent what popular romance can be a vehicle to revive, prolong, and
transmit colonialist/orientalist stereotypes about the orient in general is the
main question this part has tried to answer. It is through having a postcolonial
reading of Never Marry in Morocco, The Veiled Web and Lord of the Desert in
terms of how gender, space, and race are represented that this part has tried to
answer the above question. The answer is mainly exemplified in the above
issues discussed under each section. In making a comparison about how each
novel represents gender, space, and race, it can be concluded that all the novels
are heavily biased and Eurocentric. That is to say, all the novels agree upon the
idea that the western woman is ‘superior’, more ‘developed’, and ‘liberated’
than the ‘oriental woman’. The three novels make use of the veil, harem and
patriarchy as windows through which they can stereotype and primitivise the
‘oriental woman’. Concerning space, it is subject to misrepresentation,
imagination and surveillance, being represented as a criterion through which
cultural, civilizational and racial differences are constructed between the ‘West’
and the ‘East’. Space is used as a means to articulate a kind of ‘imaginative
geography’ between the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’. Similarly, race is also exploited as
a premise to pronounce the “eternal” superiority of the western race and the
inferiority of the non-western race. Put differently, the three novels capitalise
on the myth of racial differences so as to inferiorise and primitivise the ‘Other’,
claiming at the same time the westerner’s sense of duty to “civilise”,
‘enlighten’, and ‘modernise’ that ‘Other’.
But, what can be considered new or different in the above imperial romance
novels is that they herald the emergence of a new imperial power which is that
of Unites States of America. The presence of American shadow, American
sense of power and authority, and American proclivity to dominate the world is
ubiquitous in all the three novels. Most characters in those novels are
represented as being proud of their ‘Americanness’ and as representatives of
their country in the oriental space. In never marry in Morocco, Virginia comes

131
to Morocco being fully conscious of the superiority of her race and the
development of her country. For instance, when she is asked to bow to the king,
she refuses, saying “I am an American citizen; I do not have to bow”. As well,
when Lucia del Mar, in The Veiled Web, is kidnapped to Morocco, American
authorities intervene to save her, considering such act of kidnapping as a
terrorist one. Finally, it is in A lord of the Desert where the American presence
is made clear. In this novel, Gretchen is represented as an American
representative who comes to a Middle Eastern country to help its people to
‘modernise’ and ‘civilise’ their country. In the light of this brief survey of these
three novels, it appears that United States is represented as a ‘powerful’,
‘modern’ and ‘civilised’ country. Hence, it is through such representation of
America that the novels can be described as endorsing American imperial
tendencies.

132
General Conclusion:

All in all, this dissertation has undertaken the endeavour to investigate some
of the manifestations of orientalist/colonial discourse in imperial popular
romance. Whether popular romance is to be perceived of as a kind of colonial
literature or not has been in fact one of the main questions this research has
tried to answer. This question has been somewhat problematised in the first
part of this research by trying to see any interlink between imperial discourse
and popular culture/romance. Throughout the writings of Edward said, Jack
Shaheen, and Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, it is found that popular culture,
especially the American one, has been engaged in producing orientalist and
colonial discourses, the main target of which is Arab Muslims.
Still, the less interest that has been devoted to popular romance in
postcolonial criticism has been in fact a very problematic point. So, an attempt
has been made to explore some of the reasons that have led to the downplaying
this romance genre in postcolonial criticism. It is found that ‘elitism’, gender,
and popular nature of popular romance are the main reasons, among others,
that have contributed to the exclusion of popular romance from postcolonial
criticism. Thus, it has been the major goal of this research to dig up the
relevance and importance of reading imperial popular romance from a
postcolonial perspective, irrespective of all biases constructed about this genre.
To attain this objective, three imperial romance novels have been selected
as case studies: Virginia Dale’s Never Marry in Morocco, Catherine Assaro’s
The Veiled Web, and Diana Palmer’s Lord of the Desert. That these novels
exemplify orientalist/colonial discourse has been elucidated via the
investigation of how gender, space, and race are constructed throughout these
novels. Through gender, it has been found that all the three novels endorse
similar stereotypes about Arab Muslim women in terms of representing them
as being ‘oppressed’, ‘secluded’ in their harems, veils and under their
patriarchal societies. It is via this representation of Arab Muslim women that

133
western women are portrayed as the total opposite of them, being represented
as more ‘developed’, ‘civilized’ and ‘modern’.
As far as space is concerned, all the three novels take advantage of spatial
differences to articulate civilisational, cultural, social, and economic
differences between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’. Oriental space has been subject
to different forms of (mis)representation, primitivisation, and imagination the
goal of which is to construct a sort of “imaginative geography” between the ‘I’
and the ‘Other’. Finally, the three novels are based on the myth race as a
crucial principle through which westerners articulate their ‘superiority’ and the
‘inferiority’ of non-westerners.
Therefore, it should be argued that popular romance should not be seen as
a mere popular or cheap form of literature which seeks to entertain a certain
audience. It is actually more than that. It should be viewed as a vehicle through
which many western stereotypes and biases are conveyed on mass level. Of
paramount importance is that this romance genre is more influential than many
other colonial narratives as it targets millions of readers from the mass. Also,
given the commercial nature of popular romance, it should be regarded as a
significant aspect of “culture industry”, to use Adorno and Horkheimer’s
concept, which capitalizes on ‘orientalizing’, ‘exoticizing’ and ‘eroticizing’ the
‘Other’ (the ‘Oriental’) for the sake of seducing as many western readers as
possible. In brief, has there been any conclusion to be drawn from this
research, it would be as follows: colonial/orientalist discourse is an on-going
process which keeps developing, and adapting new forms X popular
culture/romance as an example of these formsX; and it is not exclusive to
certain cultural literary forms, but can take shape in different cultural literary
forms, ‘high’ or ‘low’.
Of course, no doubt is there that this research has its limits and limitations.
For instance, each of the above concepts (gender, space, and race) is supposed
to be devoted a dissertation alone so that it can be covered from all its different
perspectives and dimensions. In putting them together in this dissertation, it
should be acknowledged that there are still gaps to be filled within each

134
concept. In addition to those concepts, other issues and concepts like culture,
religion, and class can be subject to analysis as far as popular romance is
concerned. Also, it would have been of paramount importance to make a
comparison between colonial/orientalist discourse in imperial popular romance
and in other imperial narratives, such as in Travel Literature and in Cinema.
Yet, it has been the major goal of this research to draw attention to the
colonial/orientalist discourse in popular romance, making use of gender, space,
and race simply as instances through which that discourse is materialised.
In the end, it is to be hoped that this research has succeeded, to some
extent, to bring into light the importance of studying imperial popular romance
in terms of its colonial, orientalist, and cultural discourses. It is also hoped that
this research has managed to exhibit how colonial/orientalist discourse knows
no limits or barriers, but goes across time and space, across ‘high culture’ as
well as ‘popular culture’.

135
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romanceno00ferauoft_djvu.txt].

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