The Oriental Gaze: How Flaubert and Bachmann Unpacked Power, Desire, and Identity in Egypt

The "Orient" has long served as a canvas for Western imagination, a stage where exoticism, power, and desire played out. But what happens when authors, decades apart, travel to this same distant land, bringing vastly different lenses through which to observe, interpret, and reflect?

From the bustling souks of Cairo to the timeless expanse of the desert, Egypt has captivated European minds for centuries. Yet, beyond the allure of ancient ruins and vibrant cultures lies a complex history of representation, often steeped in colonial assumptions and projections. This article delves into how two prominent European authors - the 19th-century French realist Gustave Flaubert and the 20th-century Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann - navigated this intricate landscape in their travels and subsequent literary works. Through their distinct approaches, we uncover profound insights into the nature of the "Oriental gaze," the intricate dance of power dynamics, and the enduring struggle for identity, both personal and collective.

Deconstructing the Orientalist Framework

To understand the narratives of Flaubert and Bachmann, it's crucial to first grasp the concept of Orientalism. Coined by Edward Said, this term describes a Western style of thought that essentializes and caricatures the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa (the "Orient") as inherently exotic, irrational, and inferior. This discursive construction served not merely as a description but as a tool for asserting Western cultural and political dominance.

Key characteristics of the Orientalist trope include:

Exoticism: Portraying the Orient as mysterious, sensual, and fundamentally "other."
Sensuality and Eroticism: Often reducing Eastern women to figures of sexual fantasy, while simultaneously pathologizing their societies.
Passivity and Irrationality: Depicting Eastern populations as needing Western guidance or intervention.
Timelessness: Stripping the Orient of its historical progression, presenting it as static and unchanging.
Racial Stereotypes: Fusing diverse populations into a single, often dark-skinned, "Oriental" type, regardless of true ethnic or cultural distinctions.

Both Flaubert and Bachmann, though separated by a century of geopolitical shifts and literary movements, grapple with, and sometimes inadvertently reinforce, these ingrained perceptions. However, their methods and ultimate intentions diverge significantly, offering a rich comparative study.

Gustave Flaubert: The Realist's Unblinking Eye

In 1849, accompanied by his friend Maxime Du Camp, Gustave Flaubert embarked on a seminal journey to Egypt. His extensive notes and letters from this period, while not formally published as a travelogue during his lifetime, heavily influenced his later fiction. Flaubert, a proponent of radical realism, famously aimed for detached objectivity in his writing, meticulously observing and recording what he saw without explicit moral judgment. Yet, even the most objective eye carries inherent biases.

Eroticism, Observation, and Implicit Bias

Flaubert's Egyptian experience was deeply intertwined with an exploration of eroticism. His writings frequently detail encounters with prostitutes, depictions of street artists engaged in sexual acts, and a fascination with what he perceived as perverse or grotesque manifestations of desire. For Flaubert, these "undreamed-of erotic adventures" with dark-skinned women represented a fulfillment of exotic fantasies, often framed within a discourse that reinforced existing racial and sexual hierarchies.

While his realist poetics ostensibly disallowed judgment, his choices of what to observe and how to describe it often subtly confirmed prevailing negative stereotypes. The "phantasmatic vision of the dark-skinned oriental woman," as a source of unique sensual pleasures, remained largely unchallenged in his direct observations, perhaps because his intimate experiences were confined to commercial encounters, which maintained a distance that prevented disillusionment.

Colonial Undertones: Beyond the Personal

Flaubert's gaze wasn't limited to the personal or the erotic. He also engaged with the more overt aspects of European presence. It is revealing that, like many tourists of his era, he attempted to smuggle antiquities out of the country - an illegal act that underscores a subtle, yet pervasive, colonial attitude of entitlement towards foreign lands and their heritage. While his travelogue might not overtly condemn such actions, his private correspondence occasionally reveals a critical self-awareness regarding the Western role in colonized territories.

Flaubert's work, therefore, stands as a testament to the complex interplay between a writer's personal fascinations and the broader societal currents of his time. His "objectivity" paradoxically illuminates the embedded nature of colonial power structures and the racialized lens through which the West viewed the East.

Ingeborg Bachmann: The Subversion of Self and Other

Decades later, in the 1960s, Ingeborg Bachmann's journey to Egypt, chronicled through her character Franza in the novel Malina, offers a profoundly different engagement with the "Orient." Franza's trip is not one of detached observation but a desperate quest for self-healing and escape from profound personal trauma. Abused physically and mentally by her "fascist" husband, Leo Jordan, Franza projects her torment onto the patriarchal structures of Western society, seeking solace and retribution in a land often stereotyped as diametrically opposed.

Franza's Transgression: Healing Through Identification

Franza's journey is a symbolic act of resistance. She actively seeks to identify with the colonized, the "dark-skinned" Other, whom she perceives as fellow victims of white domination. Her physical transformation—her skin peeling and turning brown—is a potent metaphor for her internal assimilation and an attempt to shed her "white" identity, which she associates with oppression. This radical empathy leads her to paradoxical conclusions, such as her indulgence towards Arab men, even when witnessing their mistreatment of women. She famously compares her Viennese tormentor to a "murderer" and, witnessing a local woman being humiliated in Cairo, ponders:

'I also know my murderer, who is standing on a platform or in his house, and am craving for proverbs because nobody comes to rescue me. And I am tied up and struck dumb because each scream would take me to the licensed mental asylums because they have long since made a rope out of my hair, and I am praying for the Arab, who might be better, who is taking his mad wife home and protecting her screams there.'

This provocative statement reveals Franza's desperate search for a "wholesome Arab world" as an antithesis to the "sick civilization of the whites" that has victimized her. Her self-healing strategy relies on a dichotomous division of humanity, where the oppressed (women, colonized people) find solidarity against the oppressor (white, Western patriarchy).

Sexual Liberation and Racial Reconciliation

For Franza, Egypt offers a utopian space for the dissolution of the male-female antagonism. Her group sexual encounter with two Egyptian men is not merely an exploration of erotic potential but a symbolic act of revenge against her husband and the bourgeois hypocrisy she despises. Crucially, it becomes an act of reconciliation: bridging not only the gender divide but also the racial one. In contrast to Flaubert's pursuit of maximum erotic pleasure, Franza's sexual encounters are charged with deep psychological and political meaning, an attempt to escape the "bloody history linked to the color of her skin" and find an authentic connection free from inherited power dynamics.

Yet, the tragic irony of her story is that despite her fervent identification and pursuit of liberation, Franza is ultimately raped by a white man at the foot of the Great Pyramid, dying shortly after. This devastating twist underscores the inescapable reach of Western patriarchal violence, even in a land she idealized as a refuge. It suggests that while the "Orient" can be a site for internal transformation, it cannot fully escape the pervasive realities of global power structures.

Contrasting Lenses: Observation vs. Identification

The journeys of Flaubert and Bachmann to Egypt, though separated by distinct historical and personal contexts, offer a compelling comparative study of the European literary encounter with the "Orient."

Intent of Travel: Flaubert sought to expand his empirical knowledge for literary realism and fulfill personal erotic curiosities. Bachmann's Franza embarked on a psychological quest for healing, identity, and liberation from personal and societal oppression.
Relationship to the Other: Flaubert maintained a critical, albeit often biased, distance, observing and analyzing. Franza sought deep identification and solidarity, blurring the lines between self and Other, colonizer and colonized.
Depiction of Eroticism: For Flaubert, eroticism was primarily a spectacle of exotic pleasure. For Franza, it became a complex tool for psychological and symbolic rebellion, transcending mere physical gratification to embody acts of reconciliation and resistance.
Critique of Colonialism: Flaubert's critique was subtle, sometimes only apparent in his private reflections. Bachmann, through Franza, makes it explicit, forcefully linking colonial crimes, gender discrimination, and even the Holocaust to the "sick civilization of the whites."
Feminist Dimension: Flaubert's work reveals the patriarchal assumptions of his era. Bachmann actively subverts them, using Franza's experience to critique male domination and envision a space for female agency, however tragically flawed.

Ultimately, both authors reveal the power of narrative to shape our understanding of the world and our place within it. Their literary engagements with Egypt serve not only as historical documents but as enduring invitations to reflect on the complexities of perception, power, and identity.

Beyond the Stereotype: Legacy and Relevance

The works of Gustave Flaubert and Ingeborg Bachmann, while products of their respective eras, continue to resonate in contemporary discussions about colonialism, gender, and racial representation. They remind us that the way we portray "the Other" is never neutral; it is always intertwined with prevailing power structures and personal psychologies.

By examining these historical literary encounters, we gain a deeper appreciation for the nuanced ways in which cultural biases are perpetuated, challenged, and sometimes subverted through art. Their legacies urge us to critically analyze not only the content of narratives but also the gaze behind them, fostering a more informed and equitable understanding of diverse cultures in an increasingly interconnected world.