After last week’s reading and this week’s reading of Said’s “Orientalism” I was able to pick up the subtle mentioning of racial differences between those in Calormen and those in Narnia. At the very beginning Arsheesh says to Tarkaan “this boy is manifestly no son of yours, for your cheek is as dark as mine but the boy is fair and white like the accursed but beautiful barbarians who inhabit the North” (6). From the very beginning of the novel, there is an established other-ness between Narnia (the west) and Calorman (the east). The initial impression of Calorman is that it is a greedy place where a father uses his son basically as a slave, and is willing to sell him to a stranger. Narnia, however, is represented by Bree as a place full of life and caring people, as Shasta trusts Bree immediately, and chooses to run off with him before being sold to Arsheesh. Having established that the people of Calormen are darker-skinned than Narnians, the characters are depicted as heartless and cruel. I connected this to last week’s readings and the racist phenomenon of those of darker skin in the middle ages being depicted as cruel or evil in religious iconography, while those with light skin were depicted as pure and good.
I agree that elements of Orientalism are unintentionally weaved through the book, such as the one you listed in your post. Even by the Tarkaan mentioning that the barbarians are "beautiful," it implies that he recognizes a type of superiority of the people from the North. The Calormen are definitely to be seen as cruel, mirroring both the long-ago and ever-present attitude of western people toward the East. Combine this with the Christian undertones of the whole series (as this situation could be seen as a representation of Muslim ideas versus Christian ones), and the book is bursting with questionable ideas about non-Europeans.
I didn't notice before the use of "manifestly" when Arsheesh is discussing Shasta. It makes me think of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the expansion of the US was justified and inevitable. It feels like born Narnians have a similar justified and inevitable birthright that makes them better than the Calormen as seen in this description of Shasta and Bree's general attitude. From what I've gathered about Lewis, it seems weird he would be making a point about someone being inherently better and belonging to Narnia instead of having to earn there way there. Also, I'm still not really sure what point he's trying to make with the physical descriptions, probably commentary on Middle Eastern religions, or if he even realizes what he's perpetuating.
Nice connection! And I like Isabella's point about manifestly here because I think it gets at another aspect of the Heng reading you mention--racial (and in this case, orientalist) differences are understood to be essential and entirely self-evident. I'd be interested to hear, Trammell, if you think the narrative has changed at all in the move from the Middle Ages to the present or if C.S. Lewis is still operating in the same mode Heng analyzes.