East is East, and West is West, and this time East Trumps West

East is East, and West is West, and this time East Trumps West

In Poe's story "Ligeia", we can see the ideal of orientalism brought to task, and by doing so the patriarchal ideology is undermined. The binary in orientalism is such that the Western culture is upheld as the true civilization, while the East is thought of as exotic but still savage. Ligeia, whose last name the narrator either does not know or is incapable of remembering, defies all odds and at the end of the story returns from the dead. If that were not spectacular enough, Ligeia transforms the body she took over by forcing it to change into her ownfeatures instead of those of Lady Rowena. Orientalism was a popular idea around the time of Poe's writing of this short story. Orientalism proctored a beleif that the East was mysterious, femine, and deseriable, but also at the same time inferior to the civilized West. The narrator states: "...eyes that at once so delighted and appalled me."(4). Also is the matter of physical description, over pages 2 and 3, nearly an entire page is spent describing Ligeia's physical characteristics, while the only description of Rowena consist of one sentence: "the fair-haired and blue eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine."(7). I see this story as an undermining of patriarchal ideology. It is not the Western woman who emerges truimphant at the end of the story, it is the dark haired and exotic Eastern Ligeia that trancends death to return to the waking world.