Orientalism in Children’s Literature: Representations of Egyptian and

Methodology 
This cultural study is influenced by theories in postcolonial studies. Since the selected stories 
feature representations of the East by a Western writer, Edward Said’s Orientalist discourse 
analysis will be used as the main theoretical framework. Said, (2007) defines Orientalism as “a 
style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the 
‘Orient’ and the ‘Occident’” (p. 2). He argues against Western discourse written about the East as 
it forms an imaginary distinction between the Orient and the Occident. Found in these discourses 
are negative portrayals and false representations about the “exotic” East. He asserts
In any instance of at least written language, there is no such thing as a delivered presence, but 
a re-presence, or a representation. The value, efficacy, strength, apparent veracity of a written 
statement about the orient therefore relies very little, and cannot instrumentally depend, on the 
Orient as such. On the contrary, the written statement is a presence to the reader by virtue of 
its having excluded, displaced, made supererogatory any such real thing as “the Orient”. (p. 
21) 
The East is made inferior by the West through negative representations which reduced the East to 
a place of romance, exotic creatures and savagry, as opposed to the West; which is considered a 
place of civilazation and rationality. Said’s theory is essential in understanding why the East is 
portrayed as such in the selected texts. 
Consequently, since Arab families are classified in Elsa Marston’s stories, Spurr’s rhetorical 
trope of Classification will be used to analyze the texts. Spurr, (1993) identifies the basic rhetorical 
features of Western discourse, believing that they served the process of colonization (p. 1). He 
explains that one of the rhetorical types used in colonial discourse about the Orient is classification. 
Classifying the natives based on their level of advancement and civility helped the colonizers 
maintain hegemony over the colonized natives. He elaborates:
This system of classification is indispensable to the ideology of colonialization as well as the 
actual practice of colonial rule. On the level of ideology, it serves to demonstrate the 
fundamental justice of the colonial enterprise by ranking native peoples according to their 
relative degree of technical and political sophistication as seen from the European point of 

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AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies Volume, 3 Number 3. August 2019
Orientalism in Children’s Literature: Representations of Egyptian Shafie, Aljohani 
Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies
ISSN: 2550-1542 | www.awej-tls.org 
146 
view. On a practical level, these distinctions are made in order to show that each category of 
native requires its own administrative tactic. (p. 69) 
This method of Classification is still found in western texts about the East. It is thus essential to 
understand how and why Marston classified Arab families as such.