The Western expert becomes both the Orient and its mourning consciousness

Evidence

Whereas Aeschylus had represented Asia mourning its losses, and Nerval had espressed his disappointment in the Orient for not being more glamorous than he had wanted, Lawrence becomes both the mourning continent and a subjective consciousness expressing an almost cosmic disenchantment. In the end Lawrence—and thanks not only to Lowell Thomas and Robert Graves—and Lawrence’s vision became the very symbol of Oriental trouble: Lawrence, in short, had assumed responsibility for the Orient by interspersing his knowing experience between the reader and history. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 618

Categorization

• XREF: The shift from Aeschylus to Lawrence traces the historic arc of ‘who speaks for Asia’ — a timeline other postcolonial texts build on.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 618