1. Introduction

Edward Said’s analysis of Orientalism emphasizes, in part, the misrepresentation of Oriental women as stereotypes and clichéd archetypes. Orientalist texts have represented the East as an exotic and the inferior other. The Orientalist ‘creates’ the Orient through their writings and anchors the serially through stereotypes, which Europe (the West and the ‘Self’) is seen as essentially rational, fully developed, humane, superior, virtuous, normal, and masculine. Meanwhile, the Orient (the East and the ‘Other’) is seen as irrational, backward, despotic, inferior, depraved, aberrant, and feminine sexuality. (Macfie, 2002: p. 8) As Hans Bertens explains in Literary Theory: The Basics, for Said, Western representations of the Orient, no matter how well-intentioned, have always been part of a debilitating discourse. (2001: p. 204) Drawing on Michel Foucault’s definition of discourse in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) and Discipline and Punish (1975), which emphasizes that a discourse is an institutionalized way of speaking or writing about reality that defines what can be intelligibly thought and said about the world and what cannot. Said believes that Orientalist discourse does not present a realistic depiction of the Eastern Other but rather constructs them based on Western fears and prejudice. Said asserts that “the Orient is Orientalized”, the East and the Eastern subject is produced within this discourse because it is the West that has the competence to describe, define, rule, and settle the East. Said argues that the Orient, according to the Western conception, has a primarily feminine cultural character, signifying sexuality which, is both desired and feared in the Western male imagination. Orientalism has spawned a substantial body of feminist research in Middle East Studies. Said’s work encouraged others to expand in exploring the gender and sexuality of Orientalist discourse. There have been various studies that corroborate his arguments, besides criticisms and proposals that debate his theory. As Jeffrey Cass says, “Orientalism continues to remain one of the hottest fields of literary study”. (Interrogating Orientalism: Theories and Practices, cited in Journal of International Women's Studies: Vol. 21: Iss. 1, Article 8).

However, critiques of Orientalism are notable for their recurring focus on a substantial omission, as noted in Said’s analysis. For instance, Yegenoglu’s Colonial Fantasies adds substantially to post-colonial theory and feminist criticism. She emphasizes the fact that the representation of cultural and sexual differences is constitutive of each other and that Orientalism has been under-utilized by the Saidean paradigm (1998: p.1). She observes how Orientalist discourse has been developed by highlighting the issue of cultural difference which has acquired a paradigmatic eminence at the expense of the issue of sexual difference. Therefore, the dominance of cultural distinction in theoretical discourse has produced a relatively ambiguous understanding of Orientalism and its discursive effects. Moreover, Qudsia Mirza argues that Yeğenoğlu’s innovative investigation of Orientalism—premised upon the understanding that the seized nature of Orientalism requires an examination of its unconscious structure—produces a more vividly perceptive analysis with fresh insight into matters as diverse as the significance of the veil, nationalist ideologies, gender identity and the figure of the Oriental woman (2000: p.p259–60).

Katerina Soumani argues that the last two decades witnessed a shrug in travel writing research and it received much scholarly attention not only by literary scholars, but also by scholars from a wide array of academic disciplines, thus gaining an interdisciplinary status. Given that the boundaries between travel texts and travel fiction are often blurry, in several cases it seems safer to talk about a hybrid genre whose study from diverse disciplinary stances would probably be more appropriate and complete. (2012)

Indeed, as Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs's volume Perspectives on Travel Writing suggests, travel writing has become an object of study for scholars from fields as varied — and at once interrelated — as geography, history, sociology, linguistics, and cultural studies, among others.

The paper’s conceptual framework is based on the formulation of the travel writer’s representation of Oriental women in the context of Orientalist discourse and feminist criticism. It explores how the Orientalist constitutes himself and his subjectivity through the agency of desire and supremacy. Moreover, the detailed description of Oriental women and the depiction of Oriental culture establish modes of representation where women are discriminated against, commodified, and sexualized.

2. Travel Writing as a Colonial Project

Travel writings as a genre and practice in nineteenth-century Britain emerged within complex social and political contexts. The expanding travel industry and the rise of the middle class in accordance with Britain’s imperial mores and ideologies facilitated the emergence of this genre of writing. Therefore, travel and exploration helped codify and solidify the objective of controlling these lands and establish commercial enterprises in the name of colonial imperialism. Consequently, travel writing became an integrated part of the “colonial project,” (Leask,2008, p. 60). The desires for becoming familiar with distant lands and occupying these lands—were often inseparable themes found in the majority of British travel narratives, and were depicted through what Leask describes as “fleeting, superficial accounts of foreign lands and peoples.” (p. 5). This was directly indebted to various Western techniques of representation that made the Orient visible. The examination of British travel writings of the Middle East falls within the framework of postcolonial studies, as these travel writings often affirm cultural superiority for authors of travel literature. In Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient (1994), an account of Western travel writing in the Near and the Middle East, Rana Kabbani, a Muslim feminist, finds that Western travel writers, inescapably subservient to the Orientalist discourse, were deeply implicated in the broader imperialist project. In Kabbani’s view, the representations of women reflected a standard Victorian prejudice, which indicates that women were inferior to men; and that Oriental women were doubly inferior, being both women and Orientals (p. 23).

Nineteenth-century British travel writers typically internalized discursive modes of describing and relating to ethnic natives, and this representational process became referred to in post-colonial theories as ‘othering.’ In Travel Writing , Carl Thompson (2011) states that this process is embedded within the mode of travel writing, in which “one culture depicts another culture as not only different from but also inferior to itself (p.137). The travel writers’ perception of colonized individuals is formulated through the lens of supremacy and imperialist position.” Thus, travel writing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is intimately bound with the rhetoric of colonialism and was only one of the multiple modes, which relied on this discursive strategy to extend the reach of the British Empire. Further, Leask states that travel narratives are shaped “by the dominant intellectual concerns of their authors,” (p.2), so ultimately, the features of the travel narratives reflect and reify the British writers’ imperialist predilections.

In the nineteenth century, the areas that the Kurds inhabited attracted British travelers, diplomats, missionaries, and Army officers. Fredrick Millingen (1839), also known as Osman Bey, was a British officer in the Turkish army. He was the son of British surgeon Julius Michael Millingen (1800-1878), who was attached to the Greek army. The younger Millingen's mother Melek Hanim was of Greek Armenian heritage, and he was baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church and took the name Alexis Andrejevitch (Alexis Andreevich). Millingen was the author of several books under his name, including La Turquie sous la règne d'Abdul-Aziz (Paris, 1868) and Wildlife Among the Koords,, but it was The Conquest of the World by the Jews (1878) that brought him his notorious reputation. According to his memoirs, Millingen described how he was hounded across Europe by a transnational cabal of Judeo-nihilists and expelled from many countries, that he described himself as an outcast. Thus, his writings may reflect a sense of superiority and prejudice toward other communities. Thus, his observations could be argued that they are subjective rather than an objective insight into the lives of these oriental individuals.

3. The Portrayal of the Oriental Women in Frederick Millingen’s Wild Life Among the Koords

3.1. The Harem: The Forbidden Territory

The central signifier in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Orientalist travel writings was the harem, a segregated space in the home in which men from outside the immediate family and household were barred from entering. The word “harem” in Arabic means a sacred, inviolable place, available to the family’s female members. The harem, in a space set off from the house, was exclusively accessible to husbands and family members but no outsiders. On the same level, “the colonial feminizing of the Orient depended upon the image of the veiled Oriental woman—a figure who is therefore assigned a place at the heart of the colonial enterprise—and demonstrates the metonymic association established between the Orient and its women” (Shabanirad, 2015).

In the Orientalist chain of signification, the veil signifies not only the (Oriental) woman, but the Orient itself. It is through these entry points that the veil and woman come to represent, in Mary Harper's words, "the most characteristic aspect of the 'mysterious East' the quintessential Orient” (Yeğenoğlu, 1998: p.38). The association of the figure of the veiled woman and the Orient is integral to different colonial writings, which enables the veiled other to destabilize the identity process of the subject (p.113). These observations and depictions were exclusive to female British travel writers visiting Turkish harems. Travel writing’s dependence upon observation instead of imagination seemed to legitimize certain ‘truths’ communicated within their depictions, as they converted representations of foreign lands and peoples for their readership. The literary codes for exploring landscapes and cultures, therefore, relied on a series of reference points that signaled the Western superiority over Oriental ‘others’ (Regard, 2009, p.2). The language used in literary texts points to the imagined inferiority of the Eastern world. It inscribes Western civilization as superior that grants the authors their legitimacy to pass judgment over foreign cultural and social practices and the individuals as actors taking roles in their discourse. The modes of cultural representation of the other, or marginal constituencies, more or less explicitly serve the exercise of power and subjectivity (Moore-Gilbert B. J. Stanton G. & Maley W. (2014: p.36). Therefore, the “Other” may be conceived as a product of power/knowledge relation. Said applies Foucault’s conceptualization of power as a discourse that functions concomitantly with power. The Foucauldian conceptualization of power and knowledge highlights that relationship that shows how certain knowledge is suppressed and other knowledge is produced through power. Power produces knowledge as well as suppressed knowledge. It is worth noting that Said did not consider this as a mere contrived fantasy of the European imagination but as a disciplined, rigorously established body of theory and practice that was sustained by a great deal of textual and material effort by writers of various genres, including travel. For instance, Millingen critiques the Turkish harem, which excludes women from the curious gaze of foreigners:

[T]he harem system which the Prophet has rendered compulsory for every believer; but, even if they were to consider it as one of the first commandments of their creed, the question is how would they manage to comply with such an awkward regulation? (1870: p.251)

Said asserts it is the hegemony that gives Orientalism authority and strength. He explains how the Western system of knowledge and representation functions to construct its preferred image of the non-Western world. This cultural hegemony functions in such a way that it does not only determine the identities, but it also constructs the identities observed within the discourse (Yeğenoğlu, 1998, p.38). On the other hand, Millingen subconsciously reveals his subjective biases when he expresses his admiration for Kurdish women who do not adhere to the harem system:

[In] My opinion, they were perfectly right in keeping their women free and unveiled, and that I admired their wisdom in not attempting to imitate the foolish people of Stambul [Istanbul], who shut up their women like birds in a cage. (1870, p.307)

Language has a crucial function to describe and represent within its coded system. The capitalization of “my” in the middle of the sentence signifies the writer’s power and authority. It is an expression of masculine domination, as Linda Nochlin suggests. She cites two ideological assumptions about power: “one about man’s power over women; the other about the white men’s superiority to, justifiable control over, inferior, darker races, precisely those who indulge in this sort of regrettably lascivious commerce” (1989: p.45). In Millingen’s judgment, Kurdish women have gained advantages from not being obligated to the harem system:

This has turned to their advantage, as not only their women are far more virtuous than all those huris and odalisks whom their co-religionists shut up under the care of eunuchs, but they are also more capable than other Muslim women to take their share in the social and political existence of their race. (1870: p.267)

Travel writing is uniquely positioned to put two cultures against each other, by introducing and reinforcing judgmental prejudice against one culture while delivering observations that have been legitimized by the nature of the hegemony that a specific writer represents. The act of othering functions to elevate the cultural identity of the writer while diminishing the ethnic identity of the other culture, which doesn’t resemble his own. It sustains the established perspective of self-proclaimed British cultural superiority, as a matter of keeping the colonial occupations of lands under the empire’s control. Millingen compares women from his culture to their counterparts in the Turkish harem. He expresses his concerns while traveling with a Turkish civil servant and his harem:

Besides this, it seemed to me that with a Turkish harem, the matter was worse still, because with European ladies one may easily jump over ditches and fences, especially if they have been trained in Rotten-row [the upper-class London horse track], but with a lot of Turkish women matters are more serious. And what if the jealous husband, under the smallest pretense, were to experience a fit of violent jealousy, out of which any amount of drama and tragedies might arise? (1870, p.7)

There are enormous volumes of accounts and representations of the veil and veiled women in Western discourses, published to reveal the hidden secrets of the Orient, as the writers perceive them. The veil is a persistent trope through which Western fantasies of penetrating and uncovering the mysteries of the Orient and gaining access to traditionally forbidden spaces facilitate the writer’s objective of chronicling the interiority of the other in the compelling detail they desire. While leaving a camp, Millingen expresses his astonishment that Kurdish women appeared in the corridor to bid him farewell:

Our host and his attendants accompanied us out of the residence, whilst the women stood at the end of one of the corridors to wish us farewell. This bold step was rather a violation of the etiquette in vogue with ladies of the harem in other parts of Turkey. (1870: p. 89)

Foucault’s critique of discourse directs the analysis toward all forms of the will to knowledge, and all modes of cultural representation of the ʻOtherʼ, or historically marginalized groups. On the other hand, Mary Louise Pratt, one of the foremost critics of imperial travel writing, explains that travelogues published during the nineteenth century satisfied curious and adventurous sensations for British and European readers and sparked their interest to travel and visit the destinations which they read about in these books. (2008: p.8). To wit: Millingen recounts a scene in a depth of detail that piques a reader’s curiosities to travel and observe for themselves:

Some were nursing their little ones while seated on the ground, others were spinning wool and chatting together. Round the fire-hole other women seemed busy stirring a suspended kettle, while in a corner of the tent, a group was netting carpets and other woolen stuff. Instead of looking shy, and rushing for shelter behind some obstacle or other, as Turkish women are in the habit of doing when within range of the eyes of a male, these Koordish women, whether young or old, fair or ugly, maintained the most natural and free demeanour on our approach. (1870: p.308):

The popularity of nineteenth-century travel literature, which effectively served the imperial objectives surrounding the process of othering, also reinforced the popular identity of the Victorian era as the greatest age of British superiority and how it nourished the motivations and desires to explore the foreign lands documented in these books. Travel writing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, therefore, is intimately bound with the rhetoric of imperial colonialism, and was one of the multiple modes that relied on this discursive strategy to extend the reach of the British Empire. (Thompson, 2011: p.137).

The curious compulsion sprung from the colonial urge for material possession, underscored by the literary representation which stemmed from picturesque codes of ownership and consumption. The writer, like the masterly landscape painter, emerges from the scene as the discreet examiner of it: “The landscape is intended to be viewed from where [the writer] has emerged upon it,” Pratt writes. “Thus, the scene is deictically ordered with reference to [the writer’s] vantage point, and is static.” (2008, p.3). There are two distinct but also intertwined expressions of curiosity: a desire to gain knowledge of exotic lands and the subsequent desire to possess these lands.

3.2. The Oriental Body and the Colonial Gaze

The veil signifies a barrier between the body of the Oriental woman and the Western gaze. Encompassing the veil and exotic mysterious creatures as being invisible frustrates the Western gaze and the writer’s desire to penetrate and reimagine the body of the woman behind the veil. The central “Self” elaborates a picture of the “Other” if not in his own image, at least according to his own image; and this is the representation of the perceived difference that appears as the Other’s reality. … [W]hat is exotic is resorbed and disappears within a vast central taxonomy where differences become mere variations or aberrations of a given, authentic, all-powerful original. (Celestin,2012, p.40).

According to Yeğenoğlu, “the fantasy of penetration is only one aspect of a more complex ideological-subjective formation, which oscillates between fascination and anger and frustration.” (p.74) This interrupts the Western/colonial subject’s desire to reconcile cultural and sexual differences to their perceptions and performed imaginations. But then what does he see when the mask is lifted? How can the subject of knowledge know and be certain about what lies behind the mask? The works by travel writers contained internal contradictions in which the writers expressed being confused about contradictions (as they perceived them from their hegemonic perspective) in the people and places they visited. These feelings included anxiety, resentment, disgust, and incredulity, among others. But the overarching contract with the reader is unmistakable. For example, Millingen expresses his frustration and disappointment with his first encounter with young Armenian women:

silver and copper coins, an ornament which did not add much to their natural graces. As far as physical beauty is concerned, I must say that I felt rather disappointed. Some of the girls had highly coloured cheeks, good eyebrows and hair, but none classical Features. (1870: p.310)

As with expressions of disappointment, disgust, and frustration, appreciation of the foreign physical appearance and charms can evoke colonialist sentiments. Arriving at the Kurdish inhabited region, he is bewildered by the counterpoint of beauty and simplicity among the Kurdish women. He renders the observation to suit the familiar experience of cultural consumption as part of the imperialist discourse with which he is most comfortable. This practice transforms the objects of the traveler’s gaze into Western cultural icons. The beautiful girls are compared to the tableaux of their European counterparts:

Those four or five women who can be perceived, some sitting, some standing, in one corner of the tent, do they not represent a living tableau of what Rebecca, Sarah, or Rachel must have been in the bloom of primitive beauty? (1870: p. 283)

The author expresses paradoxical bewilderment and delight that the Kurdish harem is not a forbidden territory. This emboldens his resolve to exert the colonial gaze and to legitimize his observations of the “fair sex” as authoritative. This consolidates the imperial view of the Orientalist/Western colonial subject as masculine, and the ‘Other’ culture as epitomizing the opposite sex (Yeğenoğlu, 1998, p.70). Millingen eventually realized that the Kurdish women are different from those Armenian and Turkish women:

The women of the house showed themselves very well disposed to receive a stranger in the recesses of the harem. They neither seemed to partake of the frightened and timid manners peculiar to the Armenian ladies nor to have been trained to imitate the sham pudicity of the Turkish women. These Koordish women, far from being frightened at seeing me in the midst of them, began, on the contrary, to talk with me, answering calmly and with simplicity the questions which I put to them concerning themselves, their children, and household. (1870: p.127)

Since journey is reconstructed in narrative form, it is “therefore fictionalized, in the moment of being told” (Korte, 2000: p.11). For this reason, travelogues have been referred to as “fictions of factual representations” (Thompson, 2011: p. 63). Therefore, the depictions reveal skewed hegemonic observations, and thus the consequential critiques are shaped by the author’s lived realities, offering more glimpses into the colonial attitude which influenced and dictated their daily lives. The dominant Western male constructs formulate the representation of the Oriental world whereas women are portrayed consistently as submissive. Millingen discovers that these Kurdish beauty fairies are not only beautiful but they also ride horses and are armed to the teeth. They are brave warriors who do not shy away from opportunities to converse with strangers. The male gaze feeds into the observer’s description of every large and small detail of the Kurdish woman’s daily life. His desire to gaze and possess is fulfilled. The desire for transparency and penetration to control and dominate the foreign land is not independent of his scopic desire – from his desire to penetrate – through his surveillant eyes, what is behind the veil:

My only and as yet unrevealed object in going astray was that of giving full scope to my romantic desire for a sight of the Koordish fair sex. The attraction of a Koordish camp of some size, its disposition, and the originality of its effect, were at present quite secondary questions. My disappointment at not finding a single female figure in the midst of the people that were crammed within the precincts of Ahini's tents, had had an exasperating effect on my temper. (Millingen, 1870: p. 303)

Now, the Oriental images are clear. The Orient is not simply colonial but also its image is manifested in the binary distinctions between a masculine dominant and a submissive feminized identity. As Yeğenoğlu succinctly puts it (1998: p.78): “understanding this (double) articulation in Orientalist discourse, therefore, requires an exploration of the articulation of the historical with fantasy, the cultural with the sexual, and desire with power.” Likewise, Millingen’s example clarifies what Yeğenoğlu has explained:

It was not possible, however, that the beauty could remain any length of time undetected before a scrutinizing eye, as the charms of her face were such that she would at once have been pointed out amongst thousands of her sex. (1870: p. 310):

Nochlin (1989) argues that the Westerner controls the gaze, which brings the Oriental world into being– the particular version that makes the Orient conspicuously visible, clear, and perceived. The Orient is embodied in the woman’s corporeal form. Millingen’s descriptions evoke sentiments of sexual infatuation and desire. He alludes to the Biblical tale of humankind’s first temptation, involving Adam and Eve, to frame his tempting image of the ripe Oriental body, which is ready to be taken and possessed by the colonial man (p. 45). Millingen describes the body representing the Orient as he perceives it, which he desires to control and possess:

To describe now what this Koordish girl was like, and to attempt to draw a portrait of her, is a task of which I declare myself incapable. What I can say is that her complexion gave one an idea of what must have been the bloom of the forbidden apple of the terrestrial paradise. Her eyes, of a dark chestnut, shone like brilliants piercing through the veil of her thick eyelashes, while her nose and mouth were perfect in their shape and delicacy. (1870: p.311)

Yeğenoğlu explains that “when Said discusses how the Oriental woman is represented in Flaubert's works, he alludes to the uniform association established between the Orient and sex” (1998: p.25). The writer portrays how the Oriental woman possesses the magnetic power of temptation but he also makes clear that as the superior civilized man, he considers himself a proof of recognizing and acknowledging the presence of these seductive powers. Nonetheless, the language of Millingen’s description reveals his deep infatuation with and admiration for these women:

The sweet and exhilarating image of woman is the supreme of charms, the one most eagerly sought after everywhere and at all times, but especially amidst the excitement of an adventurous life. Her magnetic power, however, scarcely penetrates through the inanimate mass of a blasé, who, proof to feeling and sentiment, blindly rejects its beneficial influence. (1870: p.305)

The Western subject himself becomes the focus and locus of the Oriental woman's gaze. Incorporating the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Alexandre Kojeve, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan frames the critical formula as “man's desire is the desire of the Other.” One may state this formula as the “desire to be the object of another’s desire and desire for recognition by another.” By desiring that with another desire, I can make the other recognize my right to possess that object, and thus make the other recognize my superiority over him”(Kojeve, 1969, as cited in Evans, 2005: p.39). When the Western subject becomes the center of attention among the exotic Oriental woman, he becomes the object of the gaze, which then renders unto him the sense of power and supremacy:

That curiosity, which the arrival or a stranger should naturally produce, made them fix their eyes on me and my attendants; but in their way of gazing, there was something easy and simple, which revealed the purity and simplicity of their souls. The matrons stared in more familiarly and boldly way, while the young maids and especially the pretty ones lowered at intervals the luxurious veil of their long eyelashes. (Millingen, 1870: p.309)

4. Conclusion

The portrayal of Oriental women in Millingen’s travel account of the Ottoman Empire reveals that the author’s observations cannot be characterized as objective and impartial in any reasonable way. Instead, it should be viewed as being shaped by a well-defined and widely practiced body of discourse embedded with historical contexts of British colonialism. Millingen’s modes of representation spring from the broadly cultivated theoretical acceptance of his British peers, which prioritize British cultural superiority over the “Other,” that is, in this case, the Oriental, seen as regressive and feminized. His depictions of ethnic women in the Oriental world, fit within the frames of the established perceptions of desire and supremacy in the discursive formulation of Orientalism. The seemingly paradoxical observations in his writings, in which he critiques gender differences even as he expresses his admiration for the Oriental feminine body, nevertheless emphasize how his desires overshadow Victorian-era moral and social norms. The tensions of this analysis are at their most acute when Millingen goes to a region primarily inhabited by Kurdish people and discovers that, unlike Turkey, there is no harem system. Millingen takes this as the opportunity for a direct encounter with the exotic women in the Kurdish region. While his discursive portrayals in this instance indicate that he can never be freed of imperialism and colonial sentiments. The account chronicles his male gaze into the Oriental body as foreign yet exotic. From his hegemonic bearings, which he believes in, justifies his authority to judge, he critiques the Turkish harem system as backward. On the other hand, he praises and admires the fact that there is no harem system in the Kurdish and Armenian regions. However, even as there is the opportunity for the author to leave behind the rigorously formulated Orientalism that he has followed, these observations are mainly subjective and arise from his desires. The fact remains that Millingen could never fully escape from the well-defined discursive structure that upholds the “othering” of the cultures of the East, as formulated in Orientalism. The discursive desire to dominate, colonize and possess was firmly embedded in its material manifestation.

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