The Whore, the Text and the Critics: Flaubert’s Kuchiuk Hanem as Postcolonial Fetish

One of the key examples analysed in Edward Said’s Orientalism is Flaubert’s account of his meeting with the almeh Kuchiuk Hanem, a skilled dancer and courtesan, in Egypt in 1850. Frequently revisited by criticism following Said, Kuchiuk has had an extraordinary afterlife in which she is seen as standing for the Orient as a whole, an instance of synecdoche. We, as postcolonial theorists, tend to interpret Kuchiuk-as-text (Flaubert’s notes describing his encounter with her), through the same trope of synecdoche, as standing for nineteenth-century Orientalism as a whole. Yet a close reading of Flaubert’s text reveals his concern to note down specific details and to avoid the generalising logic that would make the individual a representative of her “race.” We, as critics, could learn from such a lesson. All literary genres shape readers’ expectations, and the rules of the particular sub-genre that is the postcolonial theory essay risk predetermining our interpretation of texts.