When I first started reading Season of Migration to the North, I wondered why the narrator was only .
speaking of Mustafa Sa'eed and nothing of himself. I have realized that a main point in this book is Mustafa .
Sa'eed's domination the white world, especially women. Mustafa was empty in the Arab world. He could .
not become a part of his culture because he was not even a part of himself. The only way for him to become .
part of his homeland was superficially. This explains the reason he embodied "Orientalism" when he went .
North. It was easy for Mustafa to fit the lies the Northerners had made about Arabs. This embodiment of .
the "Orient" was made possible through the stereotypes the Northerners had about the Arab world. .
The stereotypes that the Northerners created came back to them in a negative way. Mustafa was able to .
embody the stereotypes and get revenge on the former colonizers. He seem to hit the ex-colonizers where it .
hurt most, the women. In the eyes of the colonizers he was raping their most sacred element, which is what .
the colonizers did to the Arab world as well. The colonizers changed the Arabs way of life, the language, .
the countryside, the women, etc (some of the most sacred things). So in a way Mustafa created a reverse .
colonization. This includes Mustafa and his relationships with European women. He plays upon their .
fascination with the south and of "oriental" life and men. Mustafa speaks of the "disease" that has .
infected these women, yet he is the one that plays into their image of them and uses it to his advantage. .
Their "disease" would not be such a big deal if it were not deadly. Mustafa says, "everything I did after I .
killed her was an apology, not for killing her, but for the lie that was my life" (29). As a reader, I wanted to .
say "get over yourself" whenever Mustafa "consumed" a woman, leaving her in a suicidal .
state or killing her himself, claiming that it was her disease that destroyed her.
