Nardos Yosef

1 September 2016

Anlicker

English 1102

In the essay 'Reflections on Exile' by Edward Said, his main thesis throughout the essay was the fact that exile and the lack of companionship or acceptance by other people was being romanticized throughout all of history and even art and literature. He uses references to pathos and ethos in the essay to relate to the audience in terms of emotion and authority. He also uses anecdotes to tell the story of different people who have been through exile and exclusion.

He begins by arguing that exile may have caused major issues in tradition, family, and geography. He explains that a 'poet in exile' is one of the most unique experiences, and explains that being in exile is not a choice but instead something that you are born into. He tells the story of a man named Faiz Ahmed Faiz who was estranged from most of his peers. He also discusses James Joyce who ‘chose’ to live in exile because of an artistic devotion. This makes a lot of sense because most people have a common understanding of the ‘starving artist’ or an artist that suffers for his work. It is a crazy thought that exile can promote ones standing and apparently also kill a person like Yanko Goorall.

I also believe that Said is trying to elaborate that rejection to groups of people or a single person can ultimately be harmful and is not beneficial regardless of the representation in history, art, or literature. He mentions the groups of people and countries, such as the Palestinians and Jews and the conflicts that they have. He believes that the exclusion of groups of people might be used as a defense mechanism, but can cause more harm than good. When they want to reverse the effects of exile, it is much harder. They have to ‘revive an ancient language’ and found new national foundations in order to restore the country at least somewhat back to its original place.

He continues on to say that the pathos of exile is in the 'loss of contact with solidity' and the 'satisfaction of earth' which, to me, means that the emotional or relatability of exile to other people is the loss of connection with other people or ‘solidity’. While this is a weird concept, Said continues and makes the statement that people who live in exile hate non-exiles because of the fact that they belong while they do not. 

In conclusion, I believe Said makes valid points throughout the whole essay. He highlights the main issues in society regarding exile and exclusion of certain groups of people and the harm that it causes. He even uses rhetorical strategies to show the issues and to make his arguments clear. His main thesis remains evident throughout the whole piece-exile is not a good thing, and to make it seem so is not the truth.