Journey to the East’

Introduction

Critical lens is comparison of different phrases or texts using more than two novels. This is the same case in Hesse Harman’s ‘journey to the east’ and Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’. The two stories compare the European attitude towards the eastern people where they view the eastern culture as uncivilized culture and the people as naïve people. The people from the east are seen as humble, submissive, happy, obedient and faithful people while the western people are viewed as perfect people who can develop the less developed eastern countries.

I choose to discuss on Hesse Harman’s ‘journey to the east’ where he describes the journey in terms of many phrases, metaphors and other stylistic devices. The critical lens chosen on this particular essay is “The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanity's most powerful and a senseless desire - the desire to forget. Does not each generation, by means of suppression, concealment, and ridicule, efface what the previous generation considered most important” (Hesse, et al 40). The Europeans are travelling from the west to the east. The east here is symbolic suggesting that the Europeans who include both missionaries and colonialist are travelling to the marginalized colonies in order to enlighten them and educate them. Hesse as a spiritual thinker who think that Christianity should bring people together and should fight for the rights of humanity as opposed to nationalists who fight for the lives of the nation(Hesse, et al 40). Millions of people die because of their religions which should not be the case. Edward said says that Europeans separates humans in many groups regarding their education on whether they are literate or illiterate and whether they are civilized or not. This is different in the journey to the east where Hesse thinks that Christianity unites people together instead of dividing and separating them (Said Edward). Colonialist as said says came to the east which implies the less developed countries where they wanted to change the culture they said to be uncivilized.

Hesse portrays Leo as a humble and faithful servant while in real sense Leo is the real president of the league. Humans tend to forget where they have come from which is not the best thing to be done. While the Europeans view themselves as the most superior and important people of which it is not true, the master in the journey to the easy is humbled enough to act as a servant. The colonialist uses orienalism to define and protect themselves. The Orientals have general attributes which they bear even to date for example the Arabs are viewed as people who are uncivilized while the Islam religion is said to be a religion of terrorist. The Europeans saw the Orientals as people of low standards and class and linked them with being lazy, illiterate and naïve such that they could only depend on the colonialist for them to become developed (Said 12). The Europeans viewed themselves as clever people who are more developed and literate saying that they discovered the Orientals and not the vice versa. The colonialists emerged themselves as guardians to rule the world since they suggested that people from the east were very vulnerable to the cruel world. The colonialists managed to colonize the east people and took advantage of them since the people from the east were too naïve and submissive. The Europeans thought that people from the east could not make a government of their own and that all the representations in the west would be carried out not by the Orientals but by the Europeans.

The journey to the east is viewed as a good, fun and lightened journey but as it progresses it is challenged by different challenges and situations. Leo, the humble servant disappears in the middle of a forest and his disappearance causes conflicts and disagreements. The best and always happy servant keeps missing and thus posing a challenge to other people who accuse him of carrying the missing things which they find later on and which turns out that the things are not as important as they are thought to be. The group splits and dissolves as a result of Leo’s disappearance and blames him for the group’s misfortunes and the failure of that journey to the east. Hesse’s is sure that since the journey has failed the league too is no more. The narrator is very bitters since he terms the failed journey as a loss to him. He had done much for the group but later realizes that he can find Leo. He finds the servant after sending him a letter. Leo comes to the home of the narrator and this is where the narrator finds out that Leo is actually the master of the league and not the servant he acts to be. The failed journey was to test the faith and obedience of the people through the servant. This shows that people from the east are actually humble and very naïve but have their faith and are very obedient.

The Europeans as portrayed by Edward said were seen to use orientalism as a tool to take advantage of people from the east. People from the east are well described by both Hesse and said as the naïve people from the developing countries who have uncivilized culture and faith as compared to the west people who are most developed , educated, civilized and clever. They consider themselves as perfect people who are always right (Said 12). They have prejudice which is criticized by Edward said since both people from east and west are all humans and should be treated right. The Europeans viewed themselves as the orient lists and thus giving they right to civilize and rule the world. The Europeans taught the eastern people their culture thus orienting them into a culture they were not used to which made the Orientals consider them as right and thus following them and abandoning their so called uncivilized culture (Said 12). This made the people from the east submit to the Europeans and even following the government made by the Europeans especially the colonialists who took advantage of the fact that eastern people could not fight back for their rights.

Conclusion

The above discussed is all about the Europeans who are the west people versus the eastern people who are people from those less developed countries. The Europeans regard themselves as superior people who can take control over the whole world since they have the knowledge and power to bring developments. The authors in these two different articles are seen to compare the attitude of the Europeans with that of the eastern people by analyzing the behavior of the two groups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Hesse, Hermann, and Hilda Rosner. The Journey to the East. New York: Picador, 1956. Print.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.