Caton, Steven C. "An Allegory of Anthropology." Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. 142-171.

In this chapter of his book, Steven C. Caton discusses the anthropological leanings of the main character of Lawrence of Arabia, T. E. Lawrence. He does not posit that the anthropological elements of the film are purposefully constructed by either the director or the scriptwriters, but rather that they appear in the film as subconscious manifestations of clichés about anthropologists. According to Caton, it is an accepted belief that individuals enter into the fields of anthropology and archaeology because, during their childhoods, they experienced feelings of alienation and liminality. Thus Lawrence, the bastard son of an English nobleman, and a young man desperately attempting to escape from the stifling atmosphere of the English countryside into the exotic, Oriental environment of the Arabian desert, perfectly fits into this stereotype. Lawrence’s condescending, objectivist studies of and perspectives about the Arabian culture mark him as a Westerner with a drive, just like cultural anthropologists, to discover identity within a distant, mysterious land, and to ‘play-act’ as a member of whatever culture they happen to be studying.

Steven Caton’s chapter is a cleverly thorough and well-written piece of allegorical analysis. It provides an excellent look into the motivations of the main character, and furthermore into the filmmakers who, according to Caton, were filled with a sense of adventure as profound, and in some ways naïve, as that of Lawrence himself. His work offers a unique spin on the traditional take on Lawrence, since Caton views Lawrence from his own perspective as an anthropologist. Just as Lawrence serves as a figure for fascination and study to later generations, the Arabian culture served as a great and compelling mystery to Lawrence. Through a close study of Lawrence's reactions throughout several scenes of the film, the reader gains a much clearer understanding of just how condescending and intrusional Lawrence's sojourns in Arabia truly were.