Lacans theory of fictional ego direction informs Saids concept of Orientalism very directly. As Said points out, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. The exoticized Other is an object of deep fascination and attraction as well as an image of shocking, even repellant, strangeness. The Wests construction of the East is full of such contradictions; ancient mystical wisdom somehow coexists with primitive savagery and passive servile femininity with hyper-sexualized desire. The seemingly all-too-obvious contradictions in the Wests construction of the East make sense in the context of Lacans arguments about infantile psychology, for the West does not need reality to derive its self-concept from contrast with the East.
