Examining six films in particular—Gunga Din (1939), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Heat and Dust (1983), A Passage to India (1984), Indochine (1992), and The English Patient (1996)—the author explores the duality of the "Eastern" as both aggressive and seductive, depicting conquest and romance at the same time.
Nalini Natarajan is Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. She is the author of six books, including The Atlantic Gandhi: The Mahatma Overseas (2012) and The Unsafe Sex: The Female Binary and Public Violence against Women (2016).
1. Introduction.- 2. The Western and The Eastern.- 3. Treasure and Thugs: The East as Mystery and Disorder.- 4. The Eastern Desert and the Lone Hero.- 5. The Colonial Gaze, Modernism, and the Trauma of the Tropics.- 6. The East and Love in the Time of Decolonization.- 7. Conclusion.