Colonial Fantasies

Focusing on the Western fascination with the veiled women of the Orient, this work investigates the intersection between post-colonial and feminist criticism. It examines the veil as a site of fantasy and of nationalist ideologies and discourses of gender identity, analyzing travel literature, anthropological and literary texts to reveal the hegemonic, colonial identity of the desire to penetrate the veiled surface of otherness. Representations of cultural difference and sexual difference are shown to be inextricably linked, and the figure of the Oriental woman to have functioned as the veiled interior of Western identity. Thus, dualistic conceptions of identity and difference, West and East are called into question, while traditional masculinist assumptions of Orientalism and Western feminist discourses which seek to liberate the veiled woman are challenged.