Orientalism issues and Hybridity in “Kabul Beauty School” by Deborah Rodriguez
Heny Ernawati
0910732045
Popular Literature
Orientalism issues and Hybridity
in “Kabul Beauty School” by Deborah Rodriguez
Kabul beauty school is a memoir written by Deborah Rodriguez when she had mission as humanitarian organization in Afghanistan. She told about her life journey during there. The story began with flashback, about her friend who always companies her everywhere, Roshana. Then, she told about how she came there for the first time.
The first time she came in Afghanistan, she was really sad to see the women’s condition there. They are under the control of the men or their husbands, have no income, do not have the skills, and just stay at home alone. Then, when she came back to America, she looked for donors to fund her efforts to promote or provide education to women there by opening beauty salon training. Finally, she managed to make it happen.
In this paper, I will analyze Deborah’s memoir used Post-colonialism approach, even I haven’t read this memoir until finish, because I think it is the boring story, so I just read the summary. Specifically, I will use Edward Said’s term about Orientalism. Orientalism is the approach in which a work was to glorify the west and lowered the east. We see from the story how Debbie feels proud of her culture the tough and hard working with various rejection and failure when setting up a beauty salon in Afghanistan. It indicates indirectly that western people thought they are civilized and orients are uncivilized. So, she want to show or giving discourse that orient very need western to civilizing the orient, especially to civilizing the women there.
As the result of civilized by western is hybridity that I found in this memoir. Hybridity is the mixing of two cultures, where the values of immigrant’s culture actually contrary to values of the existing culture. In Kabul Beauty School, we see how Deborah made fake virginity to Roshana when he married a second time. And according to Deborah, burqa should be released because it is recovering their identity, whereas it is the right of women to feel the freedom. Then, about her marriage with Afghanistan people that must be Muslim. In Islam, women and men cannot marry if they have different religion.
As the conclusion, the memoir of Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez is containing the strong unsure of Post-colonialism. She showed the greatness of western culture to the world and wants to apply it in the eastern or orient that western thought they are irrational, uncivilized etc.
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