How has mustafa saeed taken on the role of the occident

Reference no: EM133286165

Assignment - Cultural Analysis Essay

Description - In the article, "Uncovering Identity Complication in Season of Migration to the North, a Novel by Tayeb Salih" by Saman A. Husain, he states the following:

Mustafa evoked colonial discourse so as to challenge the colonial power. The theme of mimicry is evident in his actions . . . . By the portrayed position that Mustafa held socially as a lecturer in England, it is possible to see that he gained power over European women similarly through his sexual subjugations due to his murderous, fraudulent plays on Western females including Sheila, Isabella, and Ann. Their acquiescence to his will indicates how Mustafa accomplished to [colonize] them by conquering their bodies as well as their psychology. (34-35)

1. How has Mustafa Sa'eed taken on the role of both the Occident and the Orient? Is there one he takes on more than the other? How can this play into his identity crisis and displacement?

2. The notebook that is found in Mustafa's locked room is titled "My Life Story". The dedication page said, "'To those who see with one eye, speak with one tongue and see things as either black or white, either Eastern or Western,'" (151). Is there any irony in Mustafa's dedication page? What does he mean by the phrase "see with one eye, speak with one tongue"?

3. When the narrator enters Mustafa's locked room, he sees "out of the darkness there emerged a frowning face with pursed lips that I knew but could not place. I moved towards it with hate in my heart. It was my adversary Mustafa Sa'eed. The face grew a neck, the neck two shoulders and a chest, then a trunk and two legs, and I found myself standing face to face with myself. . . . it's a picture of me frowning at my face from a mirror" (135). How is the narrator also suffering from displacement, if at all? What is the significance of this and him entering the river, much like Mustafa, at the end of the novel?

4. Bint Mahmoud is almost a woman who is unattainable, resisting the marriage to Wad Rayyes until she can no longer. Bint Mahmoud dies a gruesome death; however, she murders Wad Rayyes. Bint Majzoub describes the murder as something "not easily spoken of" because it has "never seen or heard of in times past or present" (124). How does Bint Mahmoud resist the objectification placed upon other women? Although she is objectified when our narrator has a conversion with Mahjoub (103), she is one woman who defends herself to the point of murder. What is the significance of this?

Works Cited - Husain, Saman A. "Uncovering Identity Complication in Season of Migration to the North, a Novel by Tayeb Salih." Polytechnic Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 1, no. 1, 2020, pp. 33-37.

Salih, Tayeb. 1966, Season of Migration to the North, NYRB, 2009.

Main reference/ Shafak, Elif. Honor: A Novel. Viking, 2013. Only from the start to the chapter(Shafak, Honor, from beginning through the chapter "The Brave Fight" )

Reference no: EM133286165

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