SHADOWS OF WESTERN REPRESENTATION: A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF CHEVALIER’S NEW BOY

Abstract

The research is designed to probe the Western representation of the Orient in New Boy (2017) by Tracy Chevalier. The selected novel is analysed under the reflection of orientalism discussed by Edward Said in his famous book Orientalism (1978).Edward Said states that orientalism is a contrivance for colonial powers to vanquish and ameliorate the Orient to maintain control over it. It is a complicated series of representations of the Orient by the Occident. Said emphasises that it is the incessant practice of the West in which it constructs and represents the Orient in a completely new shape to achieve its vested interest. Orientalist writers have represented the Orient as inferior, different, lamentably alien, irrational, and depraved. However, Said criticises that these representations are not the ‘natural’ or the actual representation of the Orient.The study examined ‘Western representations of the Orient’in the selected novel.In the selected novel, Osei, the story’s protagonist is representative of the Orient culture. He is represented as inferior, different and uncivilised, so the administration keeps him under strict command and authority.The textual analysis method was employed to exemplify the text. Close reading has divulged the verity that the West represents the Orient as inferior and uncivilised to asseverate its superiority and ascendancy.