Ambiguities: Lady Mary within Orientalist discourse

By Gabrielle Petit



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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a prominent woman of the Enlightenment, is often admired
for her contributions to epistolary writing, her controversial literary war with Alexander Pope, her
introduction of smallpox inoculation to England, and her support for womens rights. Her vibrant
personality, literary talent, and interesting encounters make her letters a fascinating read. Not
only does she write of the Orient, but she is also unafraid to contest often quite sarcastically
the previous travel-writers accounts of the East. Now I am a little acquainted with their ways, I
cannot forbear admiring either the exemplary discretion or extreme Stupidity of all the writers
that have given accounts of [Turkish women].
1
When one looks below the surface of her
writing, particularly her Turkish Embassy Letters, however, there lurks more than just an account
of her observations of the East. As a result of her role as an English woman viewing the East,
Montagus Turkish Embassy Letters engage in Orientalist discourse in a new and very different
manner. In order to see just how Montagu fits into the traditional discourse, it is necessary to
closely analyze her identity as both a Westerner and a female. Her dual identity is the key to why
Montagu is neither Orientalist nor counter-Orientalist, but rather, tangential to Orientalist
discourse.
Edward Saids Orientalism, published in 1978, looked at the way in which the West had
culturally dominated the East, and how the East became the Other a mirror for Western
European society. Orientalism was a way of thinking and perceiving based on the distinction
between the Orient and the Occident, the East and the West. According to Said, the two were
split into opposing binaries by the West. Essentially, the East was a construction of the West, a

1
Robert Halsband, ed., The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1965), 1:327.
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kind of Western projection onto and will to govern the Orient.
2
In the West, the image of the
East was what the West imagined, or wanted, it to be. The East became the barbaric, uncivilized
Other, the complementary foil to the civilized, highly advanced, sophisticated West. Said argues
that Western Europe conceived of the East only in relation to itself; the East became a mirror or
an Other to reflect the West and its concerns. Orientalism was about power relationships: the
West imposing itself upon the East, dominating and controlling it. Another equally important
aspect of Orientalism was that it entailed a gendered discourse; the West was masculine and
dominant and the East correspondingly feminine and submissive. The Orient was therefore
emasculated and highly sexualized.
3
Orientalism itself . . . was an exclusively male province . . .
This is especially evident in the writing of travelers and novelists: women are usually the
creatures of a male power-fantasy.
4
Oversimplified, Orientalism is basically a two-part subject-
object relationship. There is the cultural aspect West (subject) imposing on the East (object)
and the gender aspect male (subject) dominating female (object). The East came to be
represented by, and caught up in, the constructed image of the Oriental woman who was
characterized as overtly and dangerously sexual, mysterious, forbidden, and tempting, thus
inviting intrusion and domination. Said points out one of the more dangerous aspects of such a
characterization of the East: it justified in advance colonial rule and exploitation.
5

Orientalisms dehumanization and de-familiarization of the East alleviated the guilt of using

2
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 95.
3
Ibid., 187.
4
Ibid., 207.
5
Ibid., 39.
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foreign countries for personal profit, and justified the use of the East as a pawn in the Wests
game of politics and power.
Although Said does not discuss Orientalist attitudes before the time of Napoleon, there are
obvious examples of the phenomenon in male traveler-writers accounts about the East before and
during Montagus time. As one scholar has recently observed, late seventeenth-and early
eighteenth-century British and French accounts of travel to the Ottoman Empire are consistent
with Saids delineation of later representations of the Middle East.
6
Writings of male travelers,
like Robert Withers, Paul Rycaut, Aaron Hill, and J ean Dumont all clearly feminize and sexualize
the East, portraying the East as weak, corrupt, and pleasure-loving. The women and the harem
are the primary focus, the women being presented as immodest, uncontrollable (and terrifying)
nymphomaniacs.
7
They are grossly over-sexualized, reflecting the male writers fears and
fantasies. The fact that men did not even have access to Turkish women, the harem, or other
strictly female areas, and received their only information from previous travelers reports or texts
like Arabian Nights
8
, made their suppositions so outrageous as to be almost humorous. These
previous travelers reports were also made by mostly men, casting some doubt on their reliability
since these men also would not have had access to the women or the harem. The mens reports,
based on these second-hand fantastical accounts,
9
were essentially full-blown fantasies. The

6
Elizabeth A. Bohls, Aesthetics and Orientalism in Lady Mary Wortley Montagus Letters,
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 23 (1994): 179.

7
Ibid., 186.
8
Billie Melman, Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918 (Michigan:
University of Michigan Press, 1992): 8.
9
Srinivas Aravamudan, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the Hammam: Masquerade,
Womanliness, and Levantinization, English Literary History 62 (1995).
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men imagined the very worst of a group of women enclosed together in their exclusive space:
much unnatural and filthy lust is said to be committed daily in the remote closets of the
darksome baths: yea women with women; a thing incredible.
10
Another male travel-writer,
George Sandys, reported in his account that if [the women] have a will to eat cucumbers,
gourds, or such like, they are sent in unto them sliced, to deprive them of the means of playing the
wantons.
11
Clearly, these male traveler-writers do engage in Orientalist discourse. Montagu was
very familiar with these travelers and their writings, having read every account of the Orient she
could find including the Koran, the Arabian Nights, and every previous traveler account
before traveling to the East.
12
Montagu, as not only a Westerner but more importantly a woman,
had access to the sorts of places that these men did not. After her encounters with the women and
their spaces, it would have been obvious to her that there was no validity to their accounts.
Montagu experienced first-hand what they could not. She closes her letter about her visit to the
womens baths in Adrianople with: Adeiu, Madam. I am sure I have now entertaind you with an
Account of such a sight as you never saw in your Life and what no book of travells could inform
you of. 'Tis no less than Death for a Man to be found in one of these places.
13
Consequently,
her letters do not correspond to the mens accounts and also do not fit quite so neatly into
Orientalist discourse.
It is tempting to try to fit Montagu and her letters into either the Orientalist or the counter-

10
Leila Ahmed, Western Ethnocentrism and Perceptions of the Harem, Feminist Studies 8
(Autumn 1982): 525.
11
Sandys, quoted in Ahmed, Western Ethnocentrism,524.

12
Melman, Womens Orients, 82.
13
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 315.
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Orientalist camp. However, the only way to do that would be to focus almost completely on one
aspect of Orientalism, and ignore the other. Montagu and her writing must be analyzed with both
the culture and gender aspects of Orientalism in mind. Culturally, Montagu is the subject, a
Western observer viewing the East (the object). As a woman, however, Montagu is an object
viewing an object. The power dynamics in each aspect are very different and therefore, both must
be taken into consideration before trying to label Montagu. Some writers, however, do not give
both aspects equal consideration, but give precedence to one over the other. If one focuses
completely on Montagus views on Turkish women, her opinion of their role in Turkish society,
and her refutations of previous male accounts, it is easy to see her as counter-Orientalist. That
sort of focus, however, only deals with Montagu as a woman and only opposes Orientalism in its
gender aspect. Still others only look at Montagus Western impositions her use of Western
metaphors, her refusal to conform to Turkish culture in every way possible, etc., and see her as
reinforcing Orientalism. Such reduced arguments are very limiting to Montagu herself, and try to
make quick and easy sense out of the intriguing and complicated woman she was. J ust as
Orientalism can not be simplified to one basic principle, neither can Montagu be pigeon-holed for
one facet of her identity.
In portraying Montagu as counter-Orientalist, the focus becomes her identity as an
ethnographer and her participant observation in Turkish culture. Montagu did try to observe the
culture as empirically and objectively as she could, immersing herself in all aspects of the culture,
trying to escape her outsiders perspective. I ramble every day, wrapd up in my ferige and
asmak, about Constantinope and amuse my selfe with seeing all that is curious in it
14
. . . I am

14
Ibid., 405.
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pritty far gone in Oriental Learning, and to say truth I study very hard.
15
Montagu not only
dressed in Turkish clothing and learned the language, but she also provided descriptions of pre-
nuptial baths, of marriage processions and gift giving, of childbirth, of slavery, of enchantments,
sorceries, and the so-called balm of Mecca.
16
Montagu clearly took advantage of every
opportunity available to involve herself in the culture, not just as an observer but as a participant.
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, for one, sees Montagu as remarkably free of ethnocentrism and
reinforcing the Enlightenment ideals of empiricism, egalitarianism, and objectivity.
17
She notes
the ethnographic techniques that Montagu uses, such as participant observation or familiarizing
the strange. Fernea overlooks the implications of those techniques, however. The familiarizing
of the unknown is very useful to readers back home, but in familiarizing these strange objects or
people, one imposes upon them. Familiarizing something strange casts it in a new light and
changes its identity. In her attempt to legitimize what she observes, Montagu westernizes the
East. In a way, she takes possession of what is different or strange, and moves it into the Western
sphere. Almost all of Montagus familiarizing takes the form of casting Eastern objects and
institutions in a Western light, or of comparing them to a similar Western object or institution.
This technique is especially noticeable in her description of a Turkish bath. When describing the
naked women, Montagu compares them to classical figures in Western art:
They Walk'd and mov'd with the same majestic Grace which Milton describes of
our General Mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportion'd as

15
Ibid., 337.
16
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, An Early Ethnographer of Middle Eastern Women: Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), Journal of Near Eastern Studies, volume 40: Arabic and Islamic
Studies in Honor of Nabia Abbott: Part Two (Oct. 1981): 335.
17
Ibid., 331.
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ever any Goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian, and most of their
skins shineingly white, only adorn'd by their Beautifull Hair divided into many
tresses hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or riband, perfectly
representing the figures of the Graces.
18


Although Montagu does her best to oppose the Orientalist distance between the East and
the West, and make the two seem closer and more similar than supposed, she only perpetrates
Western constructions and portrays the Turkish women in terms of Western women and art. She
robs these women of their ethnicity by recasting them as objects of Western culture. She does
succeed in de-eroticizing the scene, but at the cost of transforming the women culturally: They
are recast from oversexed houris playing with cucumbers into Venus, Eve, and the Graces,
bringing them closer to upper-class European sensibilities.
19
Montagu also uses countless other
Western metaphors throughout her letters, casting original Eastern culture as a spin-off or
reflection of Western culture: Our Palace is in Pera, which is no more a suburb of Constantinople
than Westminster is a suburb to London. . . the Sultanas jewels are enough to make 4
necklaces every one as large as the Dutchesse of Marlbros. . . the Ladys go
in their Coaches to see the camp as eagerly as our did to that of Hide Park. . . .
20
Another
comparison that Montagu makes is between the womens baths and English coffee-houses: In
short, tis the Women's coffee house, where all the news of the Town is told, Scandal invented,
etc.
21
The womens baths are reduced to nothing more than a variation on, or imitation of, a
Western institution.

18
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 313.
19
Bohls, Aesthetics and Orientalism,188.
20
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 356,362,382.
21
Ibid., 314.
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One area where Montagu is especially counter-Orientalist is regarding gender. Montagu is
very interested in the plight of Turkish women, not only for their own sakes, but also for how they
reflect on her own role as a British woman. In writing her accounts of Turkish women and their
exclusive spaces, Montagu encountered and engaged with the previous male traveler-writers
accounts of women. In this aspect, Montagu counters the specifically gendered Orientalisms of
the male writers. She is able to do this because of her role as a woman (object) viewing the
Turkish women and the East (both objects). She contests the normative masculine vision of her
Western predecessors, noticing different phenomena, and correcting previous misrepresentations
from her perspective as a woman.
22
Her technique in debunking them is generally to bring up
the common assumptions and biases about the East, then to criticize and de-construct them, and
finally, to set down her own first-hand experiences.
23
As Montagu visits and observes the women
and their practices, she is frustrated at these false reports. Particularly aggravating is the
overwhelming influence they have had in shaping popular opinion back home in England. Her
own correspondents reflect these common Orientalist assumptions. Alexander Pope, for example,
warns Montagu that she will soon be in the land of J ealosy, where the unhappy women converse
but with Eunuchs, and where the very cucumbers are brought cutt. I expect to hear an exact
account how, and at what place, you leave one Article of Faith, after another as you approach near
to Turkey.
24
Montagu typically lets her first-hand experiences speak for themselves in her
letters, but sometimes her frustration clearly boils over, as it does in her letter responding to a

22
Aravamudan, Lady Mary
23
Melman, Womens Orients, 82.
24
Ibid., 72.
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Lady----- back in England:
Your whole Letter is full of mistakes from one end to tother. I see you have taken
your Ideas of Turkey from that worthy author Dumont, who has writ with equal
ignorance and confidence. Tis a particular pleasure for me to here read the
voyages to the Levant, which are generally so far removd from Truth and so full
of Absurditys I am very well diverted with em. They never fail giving you an
Account of the Woman, which tis certain they never saw, and talking very wisely
of the Genius of the Men, into whose Company they are never admitted, and very
often describe Mosques, which they dare not peep into.
25

Montagu, unlike those male travel-writers she condemns, actually had access to the people and
places about which they could only conjecture. As a woman, she could visit harems, baths, and
other exclusively female spaces. Her findings contradicted the previous reports. As Isobel
Grundy writes, she learned that the harem rested less on sexual than family politics; that women
(veiled, of course) moved freely about the streets; and that the segregation of the sexes created a
female space with its own culture and its own hierarchy.
26
Montagus reports desexualized and
normalized the women, especially in areas where they were most heavily eroticized by men.
Montagu combats male depictions of women in the East by providing oral accounts from Turkish
women themselves. One story, or rumor, that is debunked is the fantastical account (or more
likely, male fantasy) of how the Sultan chooses a woman out of his harem each night.
Supposedly, they all crowd around his bed, vying for favor, and the one at whom he tosses his
handkerchief is the woman who spends the night with him. Instead, as the Sultana tells Montagu,
the woman is simply informed beforehand about the Sultans expectations for the night.
27
This
new and more accurate account removes the male sexual fantasy, but more importantly, also

25
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 368.
26
Isobel Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999): 148.
27
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 383.
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eliminates the extreme male dominance and control factor. The retelling of this anecdote chips
away at one aspect of Orientalism: the male (subject) dominating the female (object). It also
downplays the extreme sexualization that accompanies the gendered dominance relationship. In
this one respect at least, Montagu is counter-Orientalist.
Montagus visit to the Turkish baths, and the subsequent account in her letters, also
worked to corrode the gendered aspect of Orientalism. Her report did portray the women as
European works of art, but it still de-eroticized them. Her use of aesthetics, although a Western
imposition, removed the women from the sexual stereotypes of the male Orientalist writers. She
portrayed their nudity as natural and asexual: there was not the least wanton smile or immodest
Gesture amongst 'em.
28
Montagu tried to remove the distance between herself and the Turkish
women as well, making herself an object alongside them. Her participation in their activities, like
visiting the baths, going to dinner at various womens houses, and engaging in conversations with
them about both cultures, showed that she did her best to identify with these women. She also at
times allowed the Turkish women to see her as an object of sorts to them. They found her
clothing and actions strange, and Montagu manipulated this in her account. I was in my
travelling Habit, which is a rideing dress, and certainly appear'd very extrordinary to them, yet
there was not one of 'em that shew'd the least surprize or impertinent Curiosity, but receiv'd me
with all the obliging civillity possible.
29
The Turkish women, unlike Westerners, are accepting
of difference and can simply accept Montagu and her behavior without feeling the need to belittle
or scorn. Basically, Montagu has turned the tables; she is now the object while the Turkish

28
Ibid., 313.
29
Ibid., 314.
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women are the subjects observing her. Some also interpret Montagus refusal to take her clothes
off in the Turkish bath as presenting herself as an object to the Turkish women:
The Lady that seem'd the most considerable amongst them entreated me to sit by
her and would fain have undress'd me for the bath. I excus'd my selfe with some
difficulty, they being all so earnest in perswading me. I was at last forc'd to open
my skirt and shew them my stays, which satisfy'd 'em very well, for I saw they
beleiv'd I was so lock'd up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open
it, which contrivance they attributed to my Husband.
30

It is no longer the Turkish women who are strange and exotic; Montagu is the foreigner in this
situation. Montagus refusal can be interpreted as portraying herself as an object being imposed
upon and dominated by her husband and his wishes. In contrast to themselves, the women
construct Montagu as an Other who is limited, passive (in her refusal to join them), pitifully
singular, and oppressed by her husband.
31

On the other hand, however, Montagus refusal to remove her clothes can be seen as an
assertion of her superiority, a reaffirmation of her status as a Westerner and an aristocrat. As an
aristocratic woman, Montagu would have been in a humiliating and degrading position to have no
clothes on. Clothing was a symbol of rank, as Montagu clearly knew. In fact, she applauded the
absence of rank due to the nudity among the Turkish women. The first sofas were cover'd
with Cushions and rich Carpets, on which sat the Ladys, and on the 2
nd
their slaves behind 'em,
but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain
English, stark naked.
32
Montagu had no problem with the equality among the Turkish women,

30
Ibid., 315.
31
Mary J o Kietzman, Montagus Turkish Embassy Letters and Cultural Dislocation, Studies in
English Literature, 1500-1900, volume 38: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century (Summer 1998):
540.
32
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 314.
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but apparently she balked at placing herself on their level too. As J oseph W. Lew points out,
retaining her habit does not merely allow Montagu to maintain the physical signs of her rank; it
also reminds her and the bathing women of her Englishness.
33
It was one thing to cavort around
in Turkish clothing, sample Turkish cosmetics, and visit mosques, but it seems that nudity would
have been too compromising a position for Montagu. Although Montagu bragged in other letters
about immersing herself almost too much in Turkish culture I am in great danger of loseing my
English. I find it is not halfe so easy to me to write in it as it was a twelve-month ago. I am
forcd to study for expressions and must leave off all other languages and try to learn my Mother
tongue
34
she obviously stops when things get too close for comfort.
Another interesting aspect of the above passage is the language Montagu uses in her letter,
and how she constructs the passage. She deliberately chooses the phrase lockd up in that
machine
35
to describe her corset and stays. She also deliberately sets herself up as a passive and
helpless female under the domination of her husband. It seems probable that Montagu used this
occasion to further her own opinion on corsets and sexual politics back home in England. She
normalizes the exotic, making it seem more natural than Western behavior: the Oriental women
are natural, comfortable with their bodies, while the Western women are imprisoned in their
unnatural stays.
36
One must bear in mind that Montagu, as the author of the letters, has unlimited
reign to manipulate the scene as she liked. The Turkish womens observation of Montagus attire,

33
J oseph W. Lew, Lady Marys Portable Seraglio, Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (Summer
1991): 442.
34
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 390.
35
Ibid., 314.
36
Melman, Womens Orients, 92.
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corset, and stays was most likely a convenient moment for Montagu to include an implicit
criticism of womens roles and rights in England. As Elizabeth A. Bohls notes, The
corset/chastity belt, an everyday object suddenly made strange, functions . . . as a witty allegory
for Montagus own oppression as an English woman.
37
Although Montagu purposefully departs from the male travel-writers Orientalist
stereotypes about women and the harem, she does (either subconsciously or knowingly) play up
to or acknowledge male fantasies at times. The fact that she continually emphasizes and notices
the lack of wantonness and immodesty in the Turkish women, for example, shows that she was
expecting it, if not looking for it. Although Lady Montagu takes great pains to show and subvert
the presuppositions of her male predecessors, she nevertheless does not escape from common
fantasies about Oriental women.
38
In addition, although Montagu does normalize and de-
eroticize the Turkish bath scene for the most part, there are still sexual undertones. The image of
Montagu partially undressing for her audience of Turkish women would certainly titillate her
English male readers. Srinivas Aravamudan suggests that the bath episode Montagu revealing
her underwear to the Turkish womencould have been one of the reasons why Alexander Pope
and Horace Walpole attacked her for her supposed lack of chastity.
39
Montagu also brings the
awareness of a male gaze into the bath account:
To tell you the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr Gervase
could have been there invisible. I fancy it would have very much improv'd his art
to see so many fine Women naked in different postures, some in conversation,

37
Bohls, Aesthetics and Orientalism, 193.

38
Inge E. Boer, Despotism from under the Veil: Masculine and Feminine Readings of the
Despot and the Harem, Cultural Critique 32 (Winter 1995-96): 57.
39
Aravamudan, Lady Mary.
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some working, others drinking Coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on
their Cushions while their slaves (generally pritty Girls of 17 or 18) were employ'd
in braiding their hair in several pritty manners.
40

Introducing the male gaze makes the baths no longer an exclusively female space. Montagus
account of the maids dancing at Fatimas house is also an erotic depiction. Montagu makes it
very clear that the dance arouses sexual thoughts...I am very possitive the coldest and most rigid
Prude upon Earth could not have lookd upon them without thinking something not to be spoke
of.
41
In some ways, therefore, Montagu detracts from her own assertions, whether
subconsciously or not. There is also always the possibility, however, that it did not matter so
much in what terms Montagu portrayed the naked women or the exotic dance because the male
audience was predisposed to see what it wanted to see. English males already deeply influenced
by the previous male travel-writers accounts most likely were not going to be swayed by
Montagus argument. Also, a scene full of fully naked women bathing together was probably
going to excite male readers regardless of whatever aesthetic and desexualizing descriptions
Montagu used. In fact, the French Romantic painter Ingres used Montagus supposedly
desexualized and de-eroticized description of the Turkish baths as inspiration for his lesbian-
themed work Le Bain turc.
42
Beyond constructing an image of the East and particularly the
women of the Orient, the Western males also imposed upon discourse regarding the East. Even
though Montagu tried to normalize and desexualize the women of the East, her accounts would
still be twisted by a male audience to fit the Orientalist standard.

40
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 315.
41
Ibid., 351.
42
Bohls, Aesthetics and Orientalism, 188.
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Another important aspect of Montagus writing which is in line with Orientalist
discourse is her use of the East, and Turkish women, as a mirror for her own status as a woman
back home in England. Montagu also uses the East as an Other to criticize the West and its
institutions. This is where Montagu develops her theory of Turkish women being the only free
people in the Empire,
43
rather than the imprisoned and oppressed individuals that everyone
assumes they are.
Tis very pleasant to observe how tenderly [Hill] and all his Brethren Voyage-
writers lament the miserable confinement of the Turkish Ladys, who are (perhaps)
freer than any Ladys in the universe, and are the only women in the world that lead
a life of unintterupted pleasure, exempt from cares, their whole time being spent in
visiting, bathing, or the agreable Amusement of spending Money and inventing
new fashions. A Husband would be thought mad that exacted any degree of
Economy from his wife . . . They go abroad when and where they please.
44

Montagu takes the veil, a traditional symbol of oppression, and illustrates how in her
opinion it frees the women to do what they wish. She points out that the veil allows Turkish
women to roam where they want and do what they want. Since they are veiled, no one can
identify them. This anonymity gives the women the freedom to have illicit sexual encounters as
well, with no chance of detection. This perpetual Masquerade gives them entire Liberty of
following their Inclinations without danger of Discovery.
45
Montagu seems to envy what she
sees as the sexual freedom of the Turkish women. The veil, paradoxically, gives the Turkish
women freedom and control over their own bodies something that Montagu clearly finds
lacking in England, as she describes her corset and stays as a machine. Montagu even writes

43
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 329.
44
Ibid., 406.
45
Ibid., 328.
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that her friend Achmet Beg, a Turkish scholar at whose home the Wortleys stayed while on their
way to Constantinople, saw the Turkish women as more free than Western women. I have
frequent disputes with him concerning the difference of our Customs, particularly the
confinements of Women. He assures me there is nothing at all in it; only, says he, we have the
advantage that when our Wives cheat us, no body knows it.
46
Montagu also points out that
Turkish women have a right to divorce, can hold property in their own name, and take out of a
marriage what they brought into it. Turkish women are rich having all their money in their own
hands, which they take with em upon a divorce with an addition which he is obligd to give
em.
47
Montagu points out these specific benefits because they are things which she finds
lacking in England. Lady Mary is not particularly interested in the Turkish womens situation,
but rather, in her own situation as an English woman. She simply uses the Turkish womens
status and role in Turkish society to mirror and criticize the role of women in England. As Mary
J o Kietzman points out, When Montagu sees Turkish women as free to create their own society,
her sight is also informed by desire.
48
Montagu sees what she wants to see, and picks and
chooses from what she observes, finding what will best advance her criticisms of womens roles
back in England. Yet another telling comparison is where Montagu compared the womens baths
to the English coffee houses: In short, tis the Women's coffee house, where all the news of the
Town is told, Scandal invented, etc.
49
Although the Turkish baths seem to be quite different

46
Ibid., 307.
47
Ibid., 329.
48
Kietzman, Montagus Turkish Embassy Letters, 546.
49
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 314.
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from the traditional English coffee house, Montagus analogy is significant in that she is
constructing the East as she wishes to see it. She wants to see the baths as a sort of coffee house
because that is something that she finds lacking in England, especially in her own situation, being
a talented writer. Instead of publishing anonymously to protect her reputation as an aristocratic
woman , Montagu wants to be able to freely engage in public discourse and produce works under
her own name. English women, though they could interact socially with men in public, were
excluded just as certainly as Turkish women from the really significant public commerce the
transactions that created and sustained the res publica, including the cultural production to which
Montagus own talents were ideally suited.
50
Montagu criticizes more than just womens roles in Western culture; she attacks court
rituals, religious pretensions, the traditional system of inheritance, and the judicial system.
Montagu recounts that sometimes the Sultan will gather all his wives around him while they
compete with each other for his affection, notice, and preference. However, before the reader can
dismiss this scene as ridiculous and controlling on the part of the Sultan, Montagu immediately
finds a parallel in Western culture. This seemd to me neither better nor worse than the Circles
in most Courts where the Glance of the Monarch is watchd and every smile waited for with
impatience and envyd by those that cannot obtain it.
51
Montagu criticizes Christian notions of
morality and good conduct by illustrating good behavior in Islamic culture. When describing the
duty of Muslim women to bear as many children as possible, Montagu (perhaps perversely)
wonders what would happen to all the holy virgins of Catholicism then. Celibacy and purity

50
Bohls, Aesthetics and Orientalism, 198.
51
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 383.
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which are, in one religion, sanctified, may be regarded in another as sinful and contrary to nature
and womans vocation.
52
Montagu clearly points out that virtue is relative, perhaps insinuating
that people should not be quite so self-righteous and quick to condemn those who follow different
moral codes. As to their Morality or good Conduct . . . tis just as tis with you, and the Turkish
Ladys dont commit one Sin the less for not being Christians.
53
Montagu criticizes the standard Western system of inheritance by advocating and
admiring the Turkish practice of adoption. When Turkish landowners have no children, are
unable to legally give their estates to a friend or distance relative, and want to avoid the estates
falling into the hands of the government, they can adopt a child and heir. Montagu clearly finds
this method preferable to the one practiced in England:
I own this custom pleases me much better than our absurd following our Name.
Methinks tis much more reasonable to make happy and rich an infant whom I
educate after my own manner, brought up (in the Turkish Phrase) upon my knees,
and who has learnt to look upon me with a filial respect, than to give an Estate to a
creature without other Merit or relation to me than by a few Letters. Yet this is an
Absurdity we see frequently practisd.
54

Montagu also praises Turkish law as a method of criticizing the judicial system in England,
finding many aspects of it better designd and better executed
55
than the laws in England. She
mentions a Turkish practice of branding convicted liars in the forehead with a hot iron: How
many white forheads shoud we see Disfigurd? How many fine Gentlemen woud be forcd to

52
Melman, Womens Orients, 94.
53
Halsband, The Complete Letters, 327.
54
Ibid., 410.
55
Ibid., 373.
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20

wear their Wigs as low as their Eyebrows? Were this Law in practice with us.
56
The only
aspects of Turkish law that Montagu focuses on are ones which leave room for her implicit or
explicit criticisms of Western culture and English society.
Montagu conveniently ignores the aspects of Turkish culture which are slightly
unappealing, and more importantly, not useful to her in her criticisms of England. She is only
interested in the East as a mirror for her own life and culture; the actual problems within Turkish
society do not interest her. This is shown in how easily Montagu can dismiss crucial issues
within Turkish society or culture as irrelevant. Her attitude towards slavery is quite calloused;
she thinks the Turks treat those Creatures quite well. Tis true they have no wages, but they
give them yearly Cloaths to a higher Value than our Salarys to any ordinary Servant. But Youl
object Men buy women with an Eye to Evil. In my opinion they are bought and sold as publickly
and more infamously in all our Christian great citys.
57
Basically, Montagu only mentions
slavery in the East as a convenient way of criticizing the prostitution of the marriage market in
England. Another instance where Montagu overlooks the more negative aspects of Turkish
society is where she emphasizes the Turkish womens many opportunities for sexual freedom and
infidelity, but merely touches on the husbands consequently unlimited powers of revenge. She
relates in many letters the freedom of Turkish women to do whatever they want under the
masquerade of the veil, but only in one letter mentions the sometimes disastrous results. She
relates the incident of a murdered young womans body being found near her house stabbed,
bleeding, and naked and nobody could identify the body because womens faces are never

56
Ibid., 373.
57
Ibid., 402-3.
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21

shown.
Very little enquiry was made about the murderer, and the corps privately buryd
without noise. Murder is never persud by the Kings officers as with us. Tis the
busyness of the next Relations to revenge the dead Person; and if they like better to
compound the matter for Money (as they generally do) there is no more said of
it.
58

This frightening instance of vigilante justice on the part of the husband, and the apparent
unconcern and powerlessness of the community, family, or friends to do anything, would seem to
cast some aspersions on the supposedly unlimited and unrestricted freedom (according to
Montagu) of the Turkish women. However, Montagu does not seem to be phased at all. In fact,
she simply glances over this instance and moves on to more repeated praises for the anonymity
provided by the veil. Montagu is not concerned at all with events or situations within Turkish
culture that do not relate to herself or Western culture. There is an agenda (however unplanned or
unnoticed) to all of Montagus descriptions. She uses the East as an Other to provide a better look
at the West. She picks through her observations and uses the ones that will best further her
critical examination of England.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is a historical figure that defies labeling, a character who
does not fit neatly into the Orientalist discourse surrounding her writing. One must look at all
facets of Montagus identity in order to understand how she and her writing fit into the Orientalist
discourse. Likewise, one needs to take all parts of Orientalism into consideration both the
cultural domination and the gender domination aspects. Montagu is so fascinating because she is
so different and so hard to place. The previous travel-writers had all been male, and their
accounts fit quite neatly into the Orientalist discourse. They were Westerners imposing upon the

58
Ibid., 408.
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22
East and they were men (the subjects) viewing a feminized and sexualized East (the object).
Montague, however, manages to slip between the cracks in the Orientalist theory. She was a
Westerner visiting and observing the East and she did assert her Western superiority over the
East throughout her writings but she was also notably a woman (an object) viewing the East
sympathetically and on the same level. As a woman, she fought against the gendered aspect of
Orientalism, debunking the common assumptions and myths that perpetrated the sexualization
and feminization of the East. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu does not need a label and does not
need to be pigeon-holed. Too often, trying to fit historical characters into a certain discourse robs
them of their identity and results in a one-dimensional character. Montagu is certainly one
character who should be appreciated for her ambiguities and subtleties, instead of melted down to
fit a mold.

Petit 1/10/2007

Works Cited


Ahmed, Leila. Western Ethnocentrism and Perceptions of the Harem. Feminist Studies
8 (Autumn 1982): 521-534.

Article deals with modern perceptions of Islamic women and Islamic society; points out
more benefits to the womens veil, on an individual scale as well as a societal scale. The
article helped me particularly with its treatment of Western perspectives of the East and its
focus on constructions of the harem and Eastern women.

Aravamudan, Srinivas. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the Hammam: Masquerade,
Womanliness, and Levantinization. English Literary History 62 (1995): 69-104.

Deals with Orientalist discourse and Lady Marys Turkish Embassy Letters, especially the
letter with the Turkish bath scene in it. Sees Lady Mary as correcting misrepresentations of
the East and its women (that had been perpetrated by previous male travel-writers), but also
imposing upon the East as a Westerner. Points out how Lady Mary uses Western
comparisons and metaphors; also notes her bringing a male gaze into the bath scene. Was
very helpful in collecting the many ways in which Lady Mary asserts her Western
superiority over the Eastern women.

Boer, Inge E. Despotism from under the Veil: Masculine and Feminine Readings of the Despot
and the Harem. Cultural Critique 32 (Winter 1995-6): 43-73.

Helpful in illustrating points where Lady Mary doeswhether subconsciously or
knowinglyplay up to male fantasies. Goes into extensive Freudian analysis of womens
hair braiding, which is not relevant at all to my research and argument.

Bohls, Elizabeth A. Aesthetics and Orientalism in Lady Mary Wortley Montagus Letters.
Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 23 (1994): 179-205.

Article suggests that although Edward Saids theory of Orientalism overlooks the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there were in fact many instances of
Orientalism in travel accounts during that time. Bohls highly stresses the sexualization of
the East, and its association with femininity. She also focuses on Lady Marys use of
aesthetics when describing Turkish women and the East. Also noted is that Lady Marys
critique of the East illuminates the problems and drawbacks of her own life as a woman
back home in England.

23
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Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. An Early Ethnographer of Middle Eastern Women: Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu (1689-1762). Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 40: Arabic and
Islamic Studies in Honor of Nabia Abbott: Part Two (October 1981): 329-338.

Looks at Lady Mary as an ethnographer objectively viewing and describing a foreign
culture. Especially focuses on Lady Marys descriptions of gender relationships, suggests
that Turkish women werent that oppressed. Looks at the influence of the Enlightenment
atmosphere on Lady Marys empiricism and techniques of observation. The three areas
mainly focused on are religious belief/ritual, material culture, and status of women.

Grundy, Isobel. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Most recent thorough biography on Lady Mary. Very easy to read, very detailed, contains
extended family tree in appendix. Notes Lady Marys especial concern with gender
relationships. More narrowed focus on Lady Mary and issues directly relevant to her; less
general political-economic situation of Europe and foreign relations between Britain and
Turkey.

Halsband, Robert, ed. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Volume 1. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

By far the most helpful source of all. Vol. 1 contains all of the Turkish Embassy Letters,
which were my primary focus. Also has translations of all the letters that were originally in
French. The letters about the journey to Turkey are also very helpful, giving thorough
details about every step along the waygives the reader a better sense of Lady Mary as an
ethnographer.

Keitzman, Mary J o. Montagus Turkish Embassy Letters and Cultural Dislocation. Studies in
English Literature, 1500-1900, Volume 38: Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Summer
1998): 537-551.

Portrays Lady Mary as Counter-Orientalist, identifying with the Eastern women completely
and placing herself as a parallel Other to them. Focuses a lot on her breakdown of previous
male travel-writers accounts and their inherent Orientalisms. Helpful in that it provides an
example of attempting to label Lady Mary as either Orientalist or counter-Orientalist.

24
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25
Lew, J oseph W. Lady Marys Portable Seraglio. Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (Summer
1991): 432-450.

Sees Lady Mary as deliberately trying to oppose the typical Orientalist views and place
herself as an object. Also points out, however, that she is not able to rid herself of her rank
and social standing. Helpful in seeing both the cultural/social and gender aspects of
Orientalism at work within Lady Marys letters.

Melman, Billie. Womens Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918. Michigan:
University of Michigan Press, 1992.

Deals with Orientalism theory in relation to Lady Marys travel accounts; sees Harem
Literature, writing mainly concerned with the lives of Muslim women, as opposing
Orientalist perspectives and desexualizing the Orient. Looks at Lady Mary and other
women travel-writers as ethnographers. Work does focus more overall on later women
writers, but has a large section on Lady Mary and acknowledges her significance as the
first secular female travel-writer.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.

Sets out in full detail his Orientalism theory, with many historical examples. Details use of
binaries, separation of Orient and Occident, domination-subjection relationship. Points out
that Orientalism helped to justify colonialism and imperialism. One drawback is that Said
doesnt deal with the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in relation to
Orientalism. The characteristics of the Orientalist perspective are easily found, however, in
writings of this time period.