Orientalist Fantasies in Graphic Narratives: Depictions of the Orient in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman
Orientalist Fantasies in Graphic Narratives: Depictions of the Orient in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the Orientalist depictions of the ancient Egyptian pantheon in Neil Gaiman’s iconic graphic novel series The Sandman. Edward Said’s Orientalism provides a focused means for this paper to examine how Gaiman’s The Sandman navigates the problematic issues of representation in regards to a subject where representation itself is complicit in perpetrating a centuries-old mode of colonial and cultural subjugation. In his graphic narratives, Gaiman seeks to redeem the negative Orientalist fantasies of the past that were once tools of empire by returning these fantasies back to the East as restorative and by granting them autonomy.

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