Deconstructing Orientalist Stereotypes in Isabelle Eberhardt’s Travelogues

Abstract

The article examines the role of Orientalist stereotypes in Isabelle Eberhardt’s travel short stories. It questions the oversimplified view which considers stereotyping as an individual cognitive process that helps individuals simplify their understanding of people from different cultures. It also shows that this is an ideological construct overloaded with racial attitudes, sexist, and gender issues. The author emphasizes that stereotypes reveal a cognitive bias due to generalizations, out-group homogeneity, and categorizations, and cannot be isolated from their ideological motivations, especially in the context of colonialism. Selected travel short stories by Eberhardt are analyzed: Le Magicien, Le Meddah, Criminel, Fiancée, Le portrait de l’Ouled-Naïl, and La Derouïcha, in accordance with the theory of Palestinian-American philosopher Edward Said, expressed in his book Orientalism, so as to demonstrate the major tropes of Orientalist stereotypes and their functioning in the aforementioned texts. Said asserts that the European prejudiced perspective on the East is the result of stereotypical images, which were built in a context of domination of the Orient. Other theorists are also relied upon, such as Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe, Gayatri C. Spivak, Ania Loomba, and Meyda Yeğenoğlu, in order to consider the link between Orientalist discourse and issues of ethnicity and gender. The intersectional approach allows us to examine the Orientalist stereotypes and to deconstruct the racist and sexist constructions underlying Eberhardt’s texts. It also provides a broader conception of stereotyping, which considers the nexus between Orientalist discourse, race, gender, and sexuality. The research shows that the author adopts the scrutinizing gaze of the colonizer and creates binary oppositions between Western, civilized personas and their uncivilized, Oriental counterparts. Moreover, it uses degrading and dehumanizing stereotypes which implicitly justify the “civilizing mission” undertaken by the Occident.