The Self/Otherness and Occident/Orient Dualisms: A Saidian Comparative Reading of George Lamming’s Water with Berries and Firoozeh Dumas’s Funny in Farsi

Abstract

Withregard to the theory of thepostcolonialcritic; Edward Said in his book Orientalism , the study ahead aims at analyzing the novel Water with Berries (1972) by George Lamming and Firoozeh Dumas’s a Memoir, Funny in Farsi (2003). Indeed, Said in his book examines the key elements such as the dualities of self / otherness and Occident/ Orient; as well as the attitudes of the western in relation to the Eastern. Moreover, the immigrants’ new identities by which they are to escape from being considered as an “Other” can be observed in this investigation. The study based on analysis of the content and how it is described through the characters interactions. To fulfill that, the researcher highlights the relations and the similarities of the two works; in the lights of the given theory, in terms of the content. Therefore, by providing a precise definition of post-colonial theory and duality selected in this study, the study attempts to have a comparative analysis of the two works. Recurring themes such as: other, self, superior, inferior, savage, civilized, occidental and oriental, which are noticeable in the Dumas’s and Lamming’s works.In other words, considering Said’s theory of the Orientalism, the comparative study of the two mentioned works, it comes to the conclusion that both of them with collation of Said’s key facets of his theory in Orientalism.