The Manifestation of Orientalism in Disgraced

Abstract

In establishing a new world order after the treacherous balance of the Cold War was gone, the conflict of civilizations came to the fore as Samuel Huntington suggested in his book The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order (1996). Indeed, various cultural and religious identities have become the most importance source of global conflicts, putting aside the political ideology that has been considered the foremost source of conflicts worldwide so far. Such a concept of the clash of cultures is effectively dramatized in Disgraced (2013), a play written by Ayad Aktar, who is an American playwright with Pakistani heritage. The protagonist of the play, Amir, tries to establish himself in the upper-class society of the U.S.A., concealing his religious and cultural identity as a Muslim. On the other hand, his wife, Emily, is white non-Muslim painter who tries to climb the ladder of success by employing the Islamic culture in her paintings. This study will investigate how the cultural conflict brings about a disastrous result to Amir’s life and marriage in terms of Orientalism, mainly through analyzing the paintings discussed in the play. One can see that the power of civilizations cannot work impartially in specific circumstances, which leads to a destructive influence on those trying to survive the hardship created by prejudices and discrimination against them.