Introduction to Culture and Imperialism

Essay | Edward Said

Brief Question of "Culture and Imperialism"

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Brief Question of "Culture and Imperialis

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  • What was the result of Said’s research on culture and empire?
Ans: It produced lectures he gave in the USA, Canada, and England (1985–1986).
  • What does Orientalism mainly deal with?
Ans: Affairs of the Middle East.
  • What is Robinson Crusoe about?
Ans: A European creating a feudal domain on a distant non-European island.
  • What does Said say about recent criticism?
Ans: Much focuses on fiction but ignores its place in imperial history.
  • What inspired Americans and Europeans to fight for equality?
Ans: Grand narratives of emancipation and their heroes.
  • What was Arnold’s idea of culture?
Ans: Culture can soften but not remove the harms of modern urban life.
  • Why does Said call culture “a sort of theatre”?
Ans: Because political and ideological forces act out struggles in it.
  • What is Dickens’s Great Expectations about, according to Said?
Ans: Pip’s self-delusion and failed dream of becoming a gentleman without labour or wealth.
  • What history does Great Expectations reveal?
Ans: Links between England and Australia, a white colony, through characters like Magwitch.
  • When and why was Australia made a penal colony?
Ans: In the late 18th century, to send England’s excess criminals there.
  • Where is Conrad’s Nostromo set?
Ans: In an independent Central American republic rich in silver.
  • What does Nostromo forecast?
Ans: Ongoing unrest and misrule in Latin America.
  • Why is Conrad a precursor of Western views of the Third World?
Ans: He shows it for Western judgment or exotic enjoyment.
  • What view does Nostromo offer?
Ans: A harsh view that inspired anti-imperialist writers like Greene and Naipaul.
  • How does Said see the present world?
Ans: Neither fully pessimistic nor optimistic; all views involve power and interest.
  • What surprising changes have occurred in Western cities?
Ans: Many non-white immigrants now demand their voices be heard.
  • Why does Said comment on studying imperialism and culture?
Ans: They must be studied as connected, not as separate or fixed.
  • How is India shown in Kipling’s Kim?
Ans: Beautiful but needing British control, from an Anglo-Indian view.
  • What is one main subject of Culture and Imperialism?
Ans: The link between history, culture, and aesthetic forms.
  • When did America become an empire?
Ans: From the 19th to mid-20th century.
  • What is the reality of historical experience today?
Ans: It is complex and shaped by global interactions.
  • What is Said’s expectation for the USA?
Ans: It will remain a united nation despite its cultural diversity.
  • Why does Said call New York “an exilic city par excellence”?
Ans: It resembles colonial cities and hosts diverse migrant voices.
  • What does Said feel as a citizen of New York?
Ans: He belongs to more than one history and culture.
  • What is the connection between Culture and Imperialism and Orientalism?
Ans: Both study imperial culture, but Culture and Imperialism includes global resistance.
  • What is Orientalism about?
Ans: The Middle East and Western attitudes toward it.
  • Why did colonisers claim the right to rule?
Ans: They believed themselves superior to the colonised.
  • How does Said link culture with art?
Ans: Culture appears in art forms aiming for pleasure, apart from politics or economics.
  • When does culture become a source of identity?
Ans: When there is a division between “us” (colonisers) and “them” (colonised).
  • What truth existed in the non-European world?
Ans: White colonisers always met some form of resistance.
  • Why does Said call culture a sort of theatre?
Ans: It’s where political and ideological struggles play out.
  • What is Orientalism and when was it published?
Ans: A 1978 work revealing Western bias toward the East.
  • What is crucial to culture and imperialism?
Ans: Narratives that tell or suppress stories shape imperial culture.
  • Who are the “children of decolonization”?
Ans: New scholars who expose racism in Western literature and support freedom.
  • What is post-colonialism in literature?
Ans: The study of literature shaped by coloniser–colonised relations.
  • What does Said mean by culture?
Ans: A theatre of political and ideological engagement.
  • What is decolonization?
Ans: Granting independence to a former colony.
  • How does Said admire Dante and Shakespeare?
Ans: They gave the world the best knowledge and a true picture of life. 

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Edward Said
Literary Writer