Beginnings: Slaying the Father

Abstract

This article reads Edward Said’s Beginnings as a theoretical attempt and a pragmatic ideology that reestablishes revolutionary notions of fundamental intellectual devotees of individualism. A theorist himself, Said emphasizes the urge for deconstructions in facing canonized values and methodologies that continue to shape our ways of thinking. Beginnings: Intention and Method (1975) inaugurates a writing style that liberates individuals from the shackles of outdated institutions , political systems, and cultural norms. The researcher attempts to prove that such intellectuality parallels Ralph Emerson’s conception of “self-reliance” despite Said’s conscious or unconscious abjuration of this influence, which is clear in Beginnings. For both to meet over their belief in the individual as self-sufficient and a source of truth, the researcher utilizes Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1973) as the main theory. Bloom’s logic will be applied to expose Emerson’s influence on Said as the former’s call for nonconformity speaks directly to the soundness of the latter’s reasoning in Beginnings.