Orientalist Representation of Africa in H. Rider Haggard’s She

Abstract

She is the novel written by H.Rider Haggard who is the prominent author of England. The present research work basically focuses on orientalist representation of Africa. The author represents Africa as a place of exotic landscape and its inhabitants as untamed savage. Focusing on this theme African adventure was a psychological quest for the ultimate meaning of human existence and religion through the fantastic crises of life and death undergo by the protagonist. In this context, the novel depicts an adventure, Leo Vincey who receives a mysterious legacy from his father. He goes to Africa to search for truth behind the death of an ancestor, Kallikrates. In orientalist west is superior and east is inferior. Europeans are characterized by irrational, crude, despotic, passive etc. The representation of African languages, in the novel She, the narrator Holly dominates the natives in the matter of their language. Haggard’s novel She talks about the story of Horace Holly and his charge Leo Vincey as they go in search of the white queen and the fire of life. Haggard shows the Africans in need of Europeans to move them on the path of civilization. The novel is about the station of British Empire in Africa.