A Re-Orientalist Critique of Moni Mohsin’s The End of Innocence

Aisha Jadoon and Maria Noureen

World Journal of English Language, 2024, vol. 14, issue 3, 319

Abstract: The complicity of Western intellectuals in optimizing the oppression of the Orient even after the end of European empires is a much-debated issue within postcolonial literary circles. This argument is mostly centered around the critiques of European modernity doctrine which is held as a new face of the Imperialist project. West maintains its superiority over the East through different modes, among them diasporic fiction is identified as serving this project by Lisa Lau. In particular, Lau’s idea of re-orientalism reveals the involvement of migrant writers who highlight the inferiority of their indigenous cultures in their fiction. By considering the re-Orientalist perspective with its attention to the suspicion of meta-narratives and repetition of the stories already popular among Western readers, this paper points out the subtle ways in which formulaic representation of characters, emplotment of the story in specific socio-cultural Pakistani society and the narratorial references to historical and political happenings of the Pakistani society re-construct the orient as ‘other’. This paper concludes Moni Mohsin’s The End of Innocence as a cultural construct serving the European agenda of colonization, wherein the novelist has depicted the backward, sensual and illiterate Pakistani culture through the stereotyping of the indigenous population.

Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/download/25094/15806 (application/pdf)
https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/25094 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jfr:wjel11:v:14:y:2024:i:3:p:319

Access Statistics for this article

World Journal of English Language is currently edited by Joe Nelson

More articles in World Journal of English Language from Sciedu Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sciedu Press ().