![]() ![]() Lady Mary is, in many ways, correct in her depictions of the Turkish bath and harem, but nonetheless incorrect in her description of the veil. This essay will argue that Montagu’s writings humanized the tantalized Orient women because of the special access that she had to this realm because of her gender she showed the truth of the Harems and Hammams in a humanistic way by emphasizing the cleanliness of the Turkish women, their morals and the respectful order of their hierarchies, which presents a case that they actually have more freedoms and liberties than the Western woman. Lady Montagu’s feministic tone stood in contrast to the fabricated male-dominated fantasies of the time period. Her credible first-hand accounts came from traveling to and visiting Turkey often as the wife of a British ambassador (Bohls, 179-205). She is remembered most for her letters that presented Middle Eastern culture in a more enlightened way. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is one of these few individuals who attempted to accomplish that in her works. ![]() This problematic way of viewing the east creates a false narrative that very few people have attempted to take apart. This manner of examining the east is known as Orientalism, a word that Edward Said defines as the “constellation of ideas” that present eastern lands as exotic, and separate from the west (Said). Western perspectives of areas outside of Europe are, more often than not, filtered through a lens of fantasy and imagination. ![]()
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