Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

English

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Art Simon

Committee Member

Alex Lykidis

Committee Member

Adam Rzepka

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine the character of Lawrence in David Lean’s 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia. I seek to break apart the legend, examining his individual characteristics and interest in Arabia as well as his imperialist motivations, whether unconscious or not. Lawrence struggles to find his identity and this film is an exploration of that multitude. Many of the characters in the film have conflicting ideas about who Lawrence was because he did not even understand himself. The combination of Lawrence’s defiance of British orders and society as well as his obsession with becoming an Arab marks him as an outcast. Caught between Britain and Arabia, Lawrence occupies a middle ground between these two opposing sides. Through his liminality, he also sheds light on issues between the West and the East. I used Edward Said’s Orientalism to offer the film a new lens in the way Lawrence aestheticizes the Orient and reaffirms other orientalist ideas. As an incredibly contradictory figure throughout the entirety of the film, Lawrence stands apart in more ways than one. The greater political failures of the Arab cause are reduced to his own personal ones, and he fails in liberating himself in the desert.

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